v> 



o 



THE BOY PROBLEM 

IN THE HOME 



By 
WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH 

Author of "The Boy Problem" 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



•f-TS 



Copyright 1915 
By WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH 



FEB I0IS15 

THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 

©CI,A391663 



/ 



PREFACE 

This book differs in several ways from others written 
upon the home training of children. It is entirely about 
boys. It deals with boys at all ages. (Some writers dodge 
the high-school age.) It has to do solely with three things: 
home government, sex discipline and religious nurture. 

There are many other interesting phases of the education 
of boys. There is the boy in relation to his gang, but the 
author has treated that in his earlier book, "The Boy Prob- 
lem." There is the boy in relation to the school and societ)'", 
but the author has touched that in "The Coming Generation." 
Then there is the boy and the church, but in "Church Work 
with Boys" the writer has thought about that. Other phases 
remain: the natural repugnance of boys to Botticelli; their 
immunity from the great English classics; their affinity for 
the baseball page in the morning papers; their scorn of 
afternoon tea. Only lack of space has prevented considera- 
tion of these genial themes in this book. 

The sons who inspired "The Boy Problem" in 1901 have 
now grown to manhood. Had they not all turned out well 
this book would not have been written. Yet they have not 
been referred to often here, because they have not been clini- 
cal subjects. They have rather been like friends who drop 
into an artist's studio while he is painting an allegorical 
picture and consent occasionally to sit for likenesses as his 
characters. After the author has outlined his theories they 
have been obliging enough usually to look the part. 

But there is one, whose eternal girlhood hardly suggests 
even now that she is a mother, to whom they and this book 
and the author owe everything. 

William Byron Forbush. 

The American Institute 

of Child Life 

Philadelphia 

[v] 



WHAT THE PROBLEM IS 

"Our aim in the discipline of children," says Edward 
Howard Griggs, "is to lead them to love and will the best." 

This is the aim, and it is the only right aim. The training 
of our children is not for the purpose of protecting ourselves 
or themselves or the public from their misdeeds, nor even 
for the purpose of forcibly preventing them from committing 
them. 

Another way of saying the same thing is to remark that, 
while the discipline of obedience to us may be necessary 
during early childhood, it is only in order that the child may 
become able later to obey himself. Patterson Du Bois puts 
it this way: " *I will conquer that child, no matter what it 
may cost him!' boasts the misguided parent. But suppose 
the parent should say, *I will help that child to conquer 
himself, no matter what it may cost me.' " 

Griggs illustrates the two kinds of obedience in the follow- 
ing allusion: "The Greeks, who believed so thoroughly in 
the positive view of life, have given us the clue to the right 
method of moral culture in the old story of the Sirens. Both 
Ulysses and Orpheus passed the Sirens, escaped falling 
victims to the allurements of evil, but how differently. When 
Ulysses realized that he was near the Sirens he had the ears 
of his sailors stopped, and caused himself to be bound to the 
mast. When he came within hearing of the Siren music he 
was charmed by it and struggled to free himself, calling 
loudly to the sailors to release him that he might go to the 
sweet singers. The sailors, not hearing, were untempted, 
and they rowed him by. They rowed him by! That is all 
one can say. It was small credit to the moral character of 

[vii] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Ulysses, though much to his prudential foresight. On the 
other hand, when Orpheus came within hearing of the Sirens, 
he played so sweetly upon the instrument he had invented 
and sang so wondrously that he was not tempted to leave the 
ship, nor were his comrades. It is symbolic of the whole 
problem of moral living: to waken from the instrument of 
one's own life such music that one is untempted by the Siren 
song of evil." 

I cannot but think that Ray Stannard Baker summed up 
the great purpose of the home training of boys when he said 
once that 'The one essential purpose of education is to set 
an individual to going from within; to start his machinery so 
that he will run himself." 

What we are after is self-propelling goodness. We are 
trying to produce men who will do right because they like to. 



[ viii ] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface v 

What the Problem Is • vii 

BOOK I 
THE HOME TRAINING OF YOUNG BOYS 

I The Child's Attitude 3 

How children regard law — How children break the 
law — How children regard punishment 

II The Parent's Attitude il 

The parent as educator — The right to ask obedience 
— The right to disobey — A discussion of fairness — The 
grace to overlook — The need of firmness — Can a "good 
fellow" be firm? 

III Methods of Government 29 

Government by suggestion — Government by words — 
Government through choice 

IV Government by Punishment 36 

''Natural" punishment — Corporal punishment 

V Government by Reward 51 

Government by reward — Government by emulation — 
Government by activity 

^^^ VI Sex Discipline 54 

Methods — Who is the best one to do it? — The periods 
of boyhood — The boy before eight — Motherhood — 
Fatherhood 

VII Religious Nurture 64 

The child's nurture — Teaching about God — Teaching 
about duty — Habit-forming — Habits of reverence — 
Reverence in prayer — Attention in prayer — How to 
teach a child to pray — A treasury of prayers — Exam- 
ple — Play — Stories — The little child and the Bible — 
Church-going and Sunday school 

VIII Facts for Encouragement 97 

The child is on our side — Self-control 

Summary loi 

References 102 

[ix] 



CONTENTS 

BOOK II 
THE HOME TRAINING OF SCHOOLBOYS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IX The Parent's Attitude ....... 109 

Honesty — Listening — Foresight — Insight — Companion- 
ship — Fitness 

X The Child's Attitude 135 

Relation to law — The artful dodger — Obstinacy — Indi- 
vidualism — Sociability 

XI Obedience 147 

XII Methods of Government 153 

Suggestion — Explanation — Persuasion — Diversion — 
Drill— Activity 

XIII Government by Punishment 161 

XIV More Methods of Government 167 

Choice the successor of obedience — Will-training — 
Parent and teacher 

XV Sex Discipline 176 

The problem and the period — Self-abuse — Seminal 
emissions — Sex worries — Further instruction 

-^- XVI Religious Nurture 184 

Will-training by habit-forming — Mastering a code — 
Relations with others — The training of the feelings 

XVII Facts for Encouragement 211 

Summary 213 

References 213 

BOOK III 
THE HOME TRAINING OF ADOLESCENT BOYS 

XVIII Developments of Adolescence 219 

Physical development — Emotional changes — Social in- 
stincts — Moral awakening — Summary of conditions 

XIX Methods of Government 228 

Physical management — Management of the emotions — 
Social management — Moral relations: will 

XX Ruling Motives . 239 

Self-respect — Hero-worship — Responsibility — Chivalry 
— A life purpose — Combination of motives 

XXI The Prodigal 250 

The situation and its causes— Shall he be put to work? 
-^Shall we send him away to school? — Shall we let 
him wander? — Influences that will bring him home 

[x] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXII Sex Discipline 256 \ 

Good motives — Right attitudes — Further instruction 

XXIII Religious Nurture 265 / 

ReHgion as a personal matter — Religious influences — 
Conversion — Prayer — The Bible — The Church — The 
Sunday school — Personal influence — Religious living 

XXIV Facts for Encouragement 276 

Summary 278 

References 278 

Index 283 



[xi] 



BOOK I 
THE HOME TRAINING OF YOUNG BOYS 



CHAPTER I 
THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

Our problem is to protect our little children from self- 
harm through the discipline of obedience to ourselves until 
they are old enough to live a life of not merely defensive but 
of positive and joyous goodness. 

Horace Bushnell, in one of his sentences of almost lyric 
beauty, showed insight into the reason for these long years 
of drill when he said: "And to make the work a sure one, the 
intrusted soul is allowed to have no will as yet of its own, 
that this motherhood may more certainly plant the angel in 
the man." 

In order to do this well we need to learn how these chil- 
dren regard the law of right and the punishments by which 
we try to help them. 

How THE Child Regards Law 
The young child is inherently neither obedient nor dis- 
obedient. The very liveliness of young children, the abun- 
dance of their vigorous impulses, brings them into conflict 
with law as represented by the wills of adults about them. 
As Sully says: 

''The child has his natural wishes and propensities. He 
is full of fun, bent on his harmless tricks, and the mother has 
to talk seriously to him about being naughty. How can we 
wonder at his disliking the constraint? He has a number of 
inconvenient, active impulses, such as putting things in dis- 
order, playing with v\7ater, and so forth. As we all know, 
he has a duck-like fondness for dirty puddles. Civilization, 
which wills that a child should be nicely dressed and clean, 

[3] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

intervenes in the shape of the nurse and soon puts a stop to 
this mode of diversion. The tyro in submission, if sound 
in brain and limb, kicks against the restraint, yells, slaps the 
nurse, and so forth. 

"Such collisions are perfectly normal in the first years of 
life. We should not care to see a child give up his inclina- 
tions at another's bidding without some little show of re- 
sistance. These conflicts are frequent and sharp in proportion 
to the sanity and vigor of the child. The best children, best 
from a biological point of view, have, I think, most of the 
rebel in them." 

Particularly is the child resistant toward precautions set 
up against dangers which he does not comprehend and to- 
ward conventions, like manners and table usages, whose 
value he does not appreciate. Upon these, long-continued 
conflicts are likely to occur, and the result is that a typical 
year-old child is angry much of the time. He is compHant 
toward adults who teach him things to do, but not tovv^ard 
those who make him refrain from doing. To him, as Sully 
says, ''Love is doing everything for his present enjoyment," 
and when his mother opposes him she must seem to him as 
if transformed into an ogre to torment him and make him 
miserable. 

A healthy, natural selfishness is part of the child's nature. 
He must begin by, first, finding himself and, second, loving 
himself; and out of these two stages he must come, very 
gradually, to recognize his brother, his other self. We have 
no idea of the Hmitations of a baby's conscience. "People," 
says Lady Isabel Margesson, "will slap and scold a baby 
of a year and a half to two years old for being 'naughty,' and 
then ask it if it is 'sorry.' The baby is supposed to under- 
stand perfectly what is meant, because it first cries when it 
is scolded and called naughty, secondly, it comes to kiss its 
mother when it is asked in a kind voice if it is sorry. One 

[4] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

moment's consideration of the limitations of a baby's mind 
and understanding, will show that the crying and the kissing 
are not in the least due to the ethical sense or to any con- 
ception of what 'naughty' and 'sorry' mean. They are the 
reaction of the mother's attitude on him. He is frightened 
and unhappy at her displeasure, and cries; he is comforted 
by her subsequent kindness, and comes to kiss her." 

O'Shea says that: "One rarely sees a child before the 
adolescent period ashamed or mortified or humiliated or even 
chagrined. There is no evidence that remorse or contrition 
is felt before this time. The child may be annoyed and sorry 
and suppliant, and the like; but these latter attitudes are 
quite different." 

We may say in general of a young child's attitude toward 
law that he eagerly seeks his own pleasure regardless of 
anything but forcible restraint, pain or fear; that he feels 
no self-condemnation; regards opposition as hostility; and 
that he does not care much what people think of him. 

When he learns that he makes less trouble for himself by 
obedience than by disobedience, he obeys. He yields to fear, 
he submits to strength; later he is conquered by affection, 
at least to such an extent that he prefers caresses and pleas- 
ant expressions to scolding and alienation from his parent. 

Where he cannot resist law directly he does so indirectly. 
He delays, he quibbles, he "eases off" obedience by doing 
his duty partially, he lays his blame on others, he accuses his 
accuser. 

Yet the child likes regularity. This is perhaps a sort of 
elementary sense of justice. If he has been taught to ar- 
range the dishes on his tray in an orderly manner, he soon 
insists on having them always placed exactly in that order. 
He Hkes to have the same commands for the same duties, and 
he objects to exceptions. 

And what he has been made to do himself he likes to insist 

ts] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

upon with his juniors. He is "a bully by birth," and what 
he gains by suggestion from his superiors he likes to work 
out on his inferiors, such as his younger brothers and the 
smaller boys on the street. 

We can easily see what these facts imply. We ought to 
be reasonable ourselves, but it is largely a waste of time to 
give reasons to a young child. Restless toward coercive 
discipline, he would rather please than displease and after he 
has been made firmly and persistently to pursue a right 
habit he prefers the habit to irregularity. Also he learns 
something perhaps as to willing right by practising discipline 
upon his dolls and his juniors. 

How Children Break the Law 

Barnes sums up his extensive studies of the offenses of 
young children in the following statements: 

"The most common offense is general disorder. 

"One-quarter of the offenses are negative in character. 

"Of the active offenses, a large proportion may be mis- 
directed energy. 

"Few children commit offenses against the Ten Command- 
ments." 

This is not a very serious indictment. A glance down one 
of Barnes' charts shows that below "general disorder" come 
destroying things, talking or whispering, neglecting work, 
fighting or quarreling, running away, but there is almost 
no story-telling or lying and no real sins or crimes. The 
offenses are almost all caused through abundant physical 
energy and restlessness, curiosity, neglecting or avoiding 
adult mandates and disobeying the to-them-incomprehensi- 
ble codes of adult order and customs. 

Concerning all these sorts of offenses there are many 
opportunities for us to misunderstand children, of which most 
of us avail ourselves. 

[6] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

Take the matter of disorder. Elizabeth Harrison, in her 
enlightening book on "Misunderstood Children," gives us 
the instance of a little boy who was being brought up by a 
blindly conscientious aunt and who rushed into the midst 
of her sweeping to invite her out to see some flowers that 
had just come up and "were going to have a party." 
His entrance whirled in a gale of wind and sent the dust 
dancing all over the room. The aunt was in a hurry, and 
was annoyed by the interruption, and sent him outdoors. 
After what seemed to him a long time of waiting he opened 
the door again to ask her if she was " 'most ready." Again 
her nearly-finished task was undone. She was angry now. 
True, she had not explained to him why she wanted the 
door kept shut, but, like many of us, she expected him to 
understand and obey her intentions. 

"The child's eyes were looking up at her. He had be- 
come tired of waiting and he simply was asking if she 
could not come and share his new joy. He had never 
swept a room, and so he had not noticed that the dust had 
been scattered by the wind. Just a word of explanation 
would have made him go off happily to some new activity 
to await her coming. But no. She was in a hurry, and 
that room must be swept all over again! It was too 
provoking! With resentment tingling in her tone she 
sharply exclaimed: 

" 'Sammie, go out of this room immediately! And shut 
that door! You are a naughty, naughty boy!' 

"The door closed with a bang! A moment more a chair 
was overthrown on the porch. The boy in his turn was 
now angry. She bit her lip and once more began the re- 
sweeping of the room. Bang! Bang! went two more 
chairs on the porch floor. 

"The upshot was that Sammie was finally shut up in a 
bedroom until he would promise to be good. A season of 

[7] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

kicking and screaming followed, which soon subsided into 
long, heart-breaking sobs. 

''At last a weak, tired little voice with the sobs still echo- 
ing in it called through the door: 'I will be good, Aunty' — a 
sob — T will be good.' A sob — but stifled now. Instantly 
the door was opened and in a moment more the child was 
nestling in his foster mother's arms. And she was whisper- 
ing in his ear: 'Aunty is so glad to have her boy back again. 
She was so sorry to have to punish him.' The child made no 
reply, but clung closer to her; his lip still trembled; the sobs, 
coming now and then as she rocked him to and fro, grew 
fainter and fainter; the loving arms that were clasped around 
her neck gently relaxed their hold, and soon the quiet, peace- 
ful breathing told that the child, exhausted by his emotions, 
was asleep. Nature had come to his rescue and was undoing 
the mischief done by the poisoning of his blood with the 
violent excitement of the previous hour. Gently the aunt 
laid the limp little body on a cot, and, bending over him, she 
tenderly kissed the tear-stained face. For, as I have said 
before, she was a good woman and she dearly loved the 
child." 

"That night when the aunt put Sammie to bed she urged 
him to tell God that he was sorry and to ask him to make 
him a good boy. After a considerable struggle he tremu- 
lously said, 'Please, God, m^ake Sammie to be a good boy.* 

"Then, as if the flood of recollection of the morning were 
too much for him, he added in a tone that rang with the 
intensity of his petition: 'And, O God, please don't let Aunt 
Betty speak that way to me any more!' 

"The scales fell from her eyes. And with the tears stream- 
ing down her cheeks she picked him up, and as she kissed 
him again and again she told him that she would ask God 
that night to help her to he hereafter a good aunt and to refrain 
from ever speaking crossly to him again." 

[8] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

To point a moral to this story would spoil it. 

Most of the disorder which children cause is the result of 
their not comprehending that they are creating any dis- 
order, and the rest of it is generally the result of the mis- 
directed energy of their natural instincts. Someone speaks 
of a little child's "touch-hunger." Pedagogues now recog- 
nize that most ancient instinct of touch as the prime means 
of a child's self-education. But a nicely-dressed Httle lad is 
left alone for a little while with nothing to play with, or is 
told to "sit still" — an impossible task to anybody under six — 
or is told not to touch almost every delightful unknown ob- 
ject in a new place, or has never been told that he must not 
tug at mother's white satin gown as well as at her blue 
gingham, and then, after he has yielded to an instinct as 
imperious and proper as that of hunger to a starving man, 
we punish him for disobedience. 

Many of the child's offenses are negative. A young child 
is played with until his nerves or body cry out with excited 
exhaustion and then is punished for being "ugly." A child 
is flooded with numerous and unnecessary and meaningless 
commands and prohibitions some of which he does not hear, 
others of which he does not understand and others of which 
he forgets and as the result is regarded by his adults as a 
miserable sinner who has done that which he ought not to 
have done and left undone that which he ought to have done, 
and who has no health in him. 

Our misunderstandings of children's offenses should give 
us light upon another matter which is of importance if we 
are rightly to govern them. 

How Children Regard Punishment 
The child, when punished, is frightened and is unhappy at 
the displeasure of his mother, and he is comforted by her 
subsequent kindness. He has no clear moral sense of shame, 

[9] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

but he suffers through a feeling of estrangement, of loneli- 
ness, of self-restriction. Sully quotes in this connection the 
pathetic remark of the little boy who told his mother that if 
he could say to God what he liked it would be: "Love me 
when I'm naughty/' 

In the matter of response to punishments there is a differ- 
ence, according to the temperament of children, even when 
they are very young. Mrs. Wiggin tells of the child "over 
Hardscrabble way" who "acted discouraged from the time 
it was two weeks old." Such an infant Job would evidently 
greet correction in a different mood from a youthful 
Orpheus. The nervous child soon ceases kicking and 
screaming when he finds himself without an audience, but 
there is a type of child whom no counter-irritation can de- 
flect and no punishment prevent from carrying his expres- 
sions of wrath to the furthest extreme. 

There is an interesting fact as to the matter of the response 
of children to authority. The respect for authority is so 
innate that children seldom express anger toward those from 
whom they have learned that they can get no advantage. 
And, as Mrs. Kate Upson Clark says: 

"No well-managed boy lives v;ho is not glad in his soul, 
w^hatever he may say, that his mother makes him mind, and 
maintains a wholesome discipline. He is proud that she 
can do it." 



[10] 



CHAPTER II 
THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

As the administrators of law, just, firm, kindly, sympa- 
thetic, and thus as the representatives of God to our ignorant, 
affectionate and helpless children, how much is demanded 
of us! 

"O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule, 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces? 
Love, Hope and Patience, these must be thy graces, 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school." 

Many of us are whipping out of our children things that 
we should have whipped out of ourselves before they were 
here. 

How many mothers are thoroughly satisfied that they 
are capable of governing themselves before they try to 
govern their children, and how many more consider they 
are completely obedient to laws divine and human before 
they demand strict obedience from their children? 

Our young people have a right to live the racial life. It 
is doubtful whether they can be completely human unless 
they do so. We must frequently ask ourselves with serious- 
ness whether those acts which we object to on the part of 
our children are really wrong or simply happen to be annoy- 
ing to us. 

So much of child government consists of imitation that far 
more important than any special virtues or devices is the 
genuine goodness of the parent. Mrs. Wiggin quotes the 
Chinese proverb that runs: "Not the cry but the rising of a 
wild duck impels the flock to follow him in upward 
flight." 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

It is nearly needless to say that real goodness is intelligent 
goodness. To prescribe wisely, we must know. We must 
know both the fault and the cause of the fault. To gain this 
wisdom we need every resource possible. We need retro- 
spection into our own childhood. We need to keep that 
confidence of the child which shall make him always eager 
to try to tell why he thinks he has erred. We need that 
quiet and patient meditation afterward which shall make our 
interpretations representative of our total wisdom. 

The Parent as Educator 

If the parent is to be a good teacher he must have the 
right attitude toward his child. There are three wrong 
attitudes, and there is only one right one. The three wrong 
attitudes are: That a child is a plaything to be used for the 
pleasure or amusement of his parents and adult relatives; 
that he is an object of compassion and therefore is to be 
perpetually indulged; that he is to blame and therefore is at 
times to be punished. The right idea is that even a little 
child is a person. He has rights, needs and wants all his 
own. As Miss Helen Webb, of England, says: 

"The fact is that each child comes into this world an 
independent being. As soon as he has developed senses 
capable of feehng, seeing and hearing, he at once begins 
forming links, on his own account, between himself and the 
whole world around him, and shows himself as intelligent, 
or often much more intelligent, than the grown-up people he 
lives among. He is ready to observe and notice and reason 
and draw his own conclusions from everything he sees and 
hears, but as yet he is very ignorant, and extremely credu- 
lous; and just for these very reasons, if for no others, he 
puts us on our honor to be truthful and honest in all our 
dealings with him." 

The purpose of this chapter is to show how the child may 

[12] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

have his early rights and needs satisfied through the co- 
operation of his parents. 

The Right to ask Obedience 
For the safety of a Httle child, unquestioning obedience is 
necessary. This unquestioning obedience, however, like that 
of the boy who "stood on the burning deck," may be perilous 
if it is not based upon demands which are always reasonable, 
foresighted and not tyrannical. In order to be able always 
to give such commands, a parent needs to be in a condition 
of health which implies at least healthy-mindedness, a sense 
of humor and the possibility of self-control. A command 
is almost certain to be to a degree unreasonable if it is the 
expression of a conscious, or even an unconscious, desire 
to tyrannize. Parental wrath can never be effective if it is 
the expression of the mere feeling of the moment, instead of 
the outgrowth of concentrated will and reason. And if it 
be an expression of a desire for retaliation upon the child by 
the parent it is nothing else than diabolic. It is said of 
Joseph, in the first chapter of the Gospel according to Mat- 
thew, that he was a "just" man, which might be translated, 
a "fair" man. Fairness is, no doubt, the one virtue of parent- 
hood which is most appreciated by a child, even in the 
early years when the nature of justice is not completely 
comprehended. 

Is it because children are small that we find it hard to be 
fair with them? Says Mrs. Annie Winsor Allen: "If we 
thought of them as other people instead of as children, we 
should treat them more acceptably. We make the same 
mistake with almost all subordinates. Persons whose power 
compels our respect, we instinctively treat as we would be 
treated. But the further they get from equal power, the 
less we treat them as equa.ls in humanity. It is wholesome 
to regard the children in this larger light as members of 

[13] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

society like ourselves, for it would be hard to find a parent, 
no matter how gentle, sincere, and conscientious, who is not 
every day guilty of the sins of injustice and stupidity. We 
are unjust because we have the immunity of tyrants, and we 
are stupid because we are not on our guard against it. It is 
the more highly important that we keep strict watch over 
ourselves because, after all, the chief part of a child's moral 
training comes from seeing his parents try to do right." 

What a commentary upon human weakness is her remark, 
*'We are unjust because we have the immunity of tyrants," 
and upon human indolence, when she adds, "We are stupid 
because we are not on our guard." But the incentive to 
better conduct on our part is not the recognition of our 
weakness and indolence, but her last golden sentence: "The 
chief part of a child's moral training comes from seeing his 
parents try to do right." Do we believe this? Rather do 
we not like to assume infallibility? Have we not so much 
enjoyed that omniscience which we felt obliged to assume 
for their protection when our children were babies that we 
are tempted to carry it on into the days when it is no longer 
either necessary or possible? 

Ennis Richmond wisely says: "In a world of mistakes, I 
do not think there is a greater one than that most popular 
idea that a child ought not to know when a grown-up person 
is at fault. There are two reasons for this, — what I may call 
a practical and a spiritual reason; in the first place, no child 
ever thinks any grown-up person infallible, and the more 
we endeavor to represent ourselves as such, the less does 
the child believe in our representation; and, in the second 
place, honesty is the virtue that appeals most strongly to the 
childish mind. We are apt to call this virtue, when speak- 
ing of it in reference to children, justice, but this is not 
correct. Once a child believes in our honesty, he will stand 
a great amount of injustice, if by injustice we mean mis- 

[14] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

understanding, and the making children obey rules which 
originate in some mistaken idea of our own. We cannot 
help being sometimes unjust in our dealing with children; 
we can help being dishonest." 

Edward Howard Griggs also believes that this method 
pays. "Suppose," he says, "the parent acknowledges his 
fault and apologizes for it: when he turns to the further 
question of the child's impudence his hands are strengthened. 
He meets the child on the plane of moral equality in refer- 
ence to right action, the only plane on which any moral 
question can be solved. The child straightens up; it is no 
longer five years old or three feet high, but a human spirit 
to whom you have said — by your action, not in words — 
'My child, I see in you a spirit entrusted through some 
mystery of the universe for a little time to my care, and I 
recognize it as my earnest duty to give you whatever treat- 
ment will help you out into the sanest and sweetest life.' 

"It is in the latter case that the real respect of the child is 
kept, — not the notion of our supposed infallibility, sure to 
be shattered sooner or later, but the reverence that comes 
from seeing more and more clearly that, through all our 
mistakes, we have been striving, not for our ease or comfort, 
but for the child's welfare." 

It is of course most difficult, but who can say that it is any- 
thing but reasonable for a mother, when she has been un- 
justly impatient, to call her child to her side and tell him that 
she is sorry for what she said; that such words are always 
wrong no matter who says them; and that she wishes he 
would try to be very kind to her when he sees that she looks 
as if she were going to be cross? Such mothers win and 
hold not only the love but also the respect of their children. 

To speak the truth, nobody owes anybody else any kind 
of obedience if he is an unreasonable person; and unless we 
never give an order except with the firm belief that such a rule 

[IS] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

is of real necessity to the child in his task of becoming a man, 
and purge our motives continually in doing so, we are not 
fully worthy of that trust which has a right to demand 
obedience. 

Especially must we remember that the misfortunes of a 
Httle child are not punishable offenses. If his weak and 
clumsy hands have broken a dish or vase, no matter how 
rare, or overturned ink to no matter how great damage, the 
occasion is one for the expression of regret but not of anger. 
The child should be allowed to know how great is the incon- 
venience, should be taught how to apologize and, if such an 
offense is frequent, may, as far as is practicable, make restora- 
tion. There may exist a nervousness which needs investi- 
gation. Often there is merely a pretty eagerness to help. 
Occasionally there appears a heedlessness which must be met 
with some form of discipline. 

The Right to Disobey 
The parent who is fair remembers that sometimes circum- 
stances will justify a disobedience. A boy who had been 
promised a sound thrashing if he fought in the street again, 
came home with all the evidences of combat on his person. 
No word of explanation was asked or even permitted, and the 
whipping was administered, *'one that he would be likely to 
remember." Fancy the chagrin of the father to learn out- 
side that his son had won his scars in defending a small girl 
from the tormenting attack of a bully almost twice his own 
size. And he had won out, too. The apology that the father 
was man enough to make healed all the son's wounds, and 
cemented a real friendship between himself and the boy that 
lasted all the term of their lives. 

A Discussion of Fairness 
One of the most important elements in the fairness of a 
parent is evenness of temper and action. Says Sully: "The 

[i6] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

slovenly discipline — if indeed discipline it is to be called — • 
which consists in alternations of gushing fondness with 
almost savage severity, or fits of government and restraint 
interpolated between long periods of neglect and laissez faire^ 
is precisely what develops the rebellious and law-resisting 
propensities." 

Another element in fairness is an enlightened recognition 
of the strength of the child's desires. Play which seems to 
us desultory and unimportant often involves the most eager 
attention and desire on the part of the child. Wantonly 
and unnecessarily and hastily to interrupt such play is not 
only an injustice and a cruelty but arouses every force of 
rebellion in the child's nature. Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen 
illustrates this very forcibly by the instance of a young mer- 
chant intent on business who, while rushing across the city 
on his wheel, met with a collision, resulting in bruises and 
dislocations which kept him from active duties for a few days. 
The mental currents, which had been rushing out along lines 
of business activity, were suddenly checked, and boiled and 
seethed in irritation and rebelHon. "It would not have been 
so hard," he said, ''if I could have been let down easy ; but this 
sudden stoppage from a point of intense activity to a state of 
enforced quietness is almost unbearable." 

One evening, while lying upon his sofa, he noticed that his 
boy, a bright little fellow of four years, was remaining up 
after his usual bedtime, and, calling the nurse, he commanded 
her to take the child to bed. The little fellow resisted with 
kicks and screams, was scolded and slapped by his father into 
sullen acquiescence and carried off rebelliously to bed. 
'T declare," said the father, "that child is getting to be 
incorrigible. I shall certainly have to take him severely in 
hand." 

This remark was addressed to a friend a woman of expe- 
rience, who, sitting in the room, had been a witness to the 

[17] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

proceedings. The comment of the father opened the way 
for the expression of thoughts which were welling in her 
mind, 

"Did you notice what the child was doing when you 
ordered him to bed?" she said. 

''Why, no; not particularly. He was playing, I believe.'* 

''He was very busy," said the friend. "He had a grocery 
store in one corner of the room, a telephone in another, and 
a magnificent train of cars with a coal-scuttle engine. He 
was taking orders from the telephone, doing up packages in 
the grocery store and delivering them by train. He had just 
very courteously assured Mrs. Brown that she should shortly 
have a pound of rice pudding and a bushel of baked potatoes; 
and had done up a pumpkin pie for Mrs. Smith, when 
he was rudely disturbed in his business by Sarah and carried 
off to bed. He resented, and probably if he could have put 
his thoughts into words, would have said just what you did 
a short time ago — that if he could have been let down easy 
it would not have been so hard. But to be dropped suddenly 
right in the midst of business was intolerable. Now, he 
knows that tomorrow the grocery store will have been de- 
molished, the telephone will have disappeared, the train will 
have been wrecked, and if he goes into business again he 
will have to begin at the foundation. You think your ex- 
perience is hard enough; but you know there are others at 
your place of business who are looking after things as well 
as they can. How would you feel if you knew that your 
store was demolished and had to be built up again from the 
foundation?" 

"Oh, well," said the father, "but that is business. The boy 
was only playing." 

"The boy's occupation to him was business, just as much 
as yours is to you; his mental activities were just as intense; 
the sudden checking of his currents of thought were just as 

[i8] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

hard to bear, and his kicks and screams were no more un- 
reasonable in him than have been your exclamations and 
sufferings during the time that you have been ignominiously 
consigned to bed. You have been worrying over plans 
that were suddenly confused because of your accident ; he 
goes to bed feeling that Mrs. Brown would be disappointed 
because she didn't get her rice pudding, and it was just as 
hard for him to bear this as it was for you to bear your- 
experience." 

''Well, what would you have me do?" said the father. 
"Would you let the child sit up all night because he is 
interested in his play?" 

"No, but you might have let him down easy. Suppose 
you had given him fifteen minutes in which to rearrange 
his thoughts. Suppose you had called him up and 
said: 

" 'Well, Mr. Grocer, I would like to give you some orders, 
but I see that it is about time for your store to close, and I 
shall have to wait until tomorrow.' No doubt the little 
grocer would have been willing to fill your orders at 
once; but you could have said: 'Oh, no. Shops must close 
on time, so that the clerks can go home. There will be 
plenty of time tomorrow. I see you still have some goods 
to deliver, and your engineer is getting very anxious to reach 
the end of his run. In about fifteen minutes the engine must 
go into the round-house and the engineer must go home and 
go to bed, so as to be ready for work tomorrow.' 

"Do you not see that this would have turned the thoughts 
of the child into just the Hne that you wanted him to follow? 
He would have been glad to close up his shop, because that 
is the way men do; and as the little engineer at the end of 
a run he would have been very glad to go to bed and rest. 
Instead of a rebellious child, sobbing himself sulkily to sleep 
with an indestructible feeling of injustice rankling in his 

[ 19 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

heart, as a happy little engineer he would have gone willingly 
to bed, to think with loving kindness of that father who had 
sympathized with him and helped him to close his day's labor 
satisfactorily." 

"I see," said the father, ''and I am ashamed of myself. 
If I could waken him I would go to him and ask him to for- 
give me. Sarah, bring Robbie here!" 

"He is asleep," was the reply. 

"Never mind; bring him anyhow." 

The girl lifted the sleeping boy and carried him to his 
father's arms. The child's face was flushed and tear-stained; 
his little fists were clenched, and the long-drawn, sobbing 
breath showed with what a perturbed spirit he had entered 
into sleep. 

"Poor little chap," said the father penitently, as he kissed 
the cheek moist with weeping; "can you forgive your father, 
my boy?" 

The child did not waken; but his hands gently unclosed, his 
whole body relaxed, and, nestling his head more closely 
against his father's breast, he raised one chubby hand and 
patted the father's cheek. It was as if the loving voice had 
penetrated through the encasing flesh to the child's spirit, 
and he answered love with love. And they will always answer 
love with love. 

The Grace to Overlook 

The fairness which endeavors to understand the intensity 
of a child's desires also learns to distinguish between what 
is essential and what is not. As Griggs tells us: "It is fatal 
to take everything a child does on the same plane of serious- 
ness; and a sense of humor, which enables us to regard as 
amusing childish incongruities what otherwise we should 
treat as annoying faults, is indispensable to the wise control 
of children. One value of sending the child away from 
home for a time is that we thereby gain perspective with 

[20] 



THE PARENTIS ATTITUDE 

reference to his faults, and so can concentrate our energies 
on helping him over those which are really important." 

The Need of Firmness 

Firmness also is a quality that is demanded of the truly 
conscientious and loving parent. Some people say, *Tf you 
are going to make your children obey you, then your author- 
ity will be one of force and not of affection." This is not so. 
Griggs again sensibly says: "Our love must have an element 
of iron in it. It must be willing to give pain to the loved one 
where that is necessary to his moral health. Parents who 
say, T love my child too much to punish him,' either mean by 
punishment merely whipping, or else they love, not the child 
and his welfare, but their own ease and comfort. It is far 
easier to say, 'Never mind, let it go,' than to say, 'My child, 
let us sit down together and try to understand what you have 
done and how you can be helped over your mistake/ and 
then to give the moral medicine that is needed." 

Even the endeavor to enable the young child to understand 
the reasonableness of a command is futile. The parent must 
simply protect the child against his own folly, and the child 
must learn to obey. Mrs. Jane Dearborn Mills, in her book, 
*'The Mother-Artist," gives this excellent illustration: 

" 'If Donald wants to make a dyspeptic of himself,' said his 
father, 'there needn't be any talk about it; he simply can't 
do it.' He was trying to persuade you to give up the habit 
of reasoning with the child every time you refused him any- 
thing. You had started with this error, common to mothers 
who think much about treating children justly, that giving 
him a reason would fill his heart with contentment even if 
he was being deprived of the only thing he wanted at the 
moment, and to his childish perception the only thing he ever 
would want. This course soon got you into trouble. Finally, 
a scene was this: 

[21] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

"'Mamma, there isn't any sugar on my oatmeal!' 

" 'Why, yes, dear, there is. You saw me yourself when I 
put it on. You can't see it because it has melted. Don't 
you know that when we put milk ' 

" 'Mamma, give me some more ! Give me much ! I want 
much !' 

" 'No, dear; you mustn't have any more, because ' 

"'Give me much! I want much!' 

" 'No, dear, it will make you sick.' 

" 'I want to be sick. I like to be sick.' 

" 'Oh, Donald, think how uncomfortable you feel when you 
are sick!' 

" 'No, I don't feel uncomfle! Give me some more sugar!' 

" 'But, Donald, it makes mamma trouble to take care of 
you when you are sick.' 

" 'You don't have to take care of me.' 

" 'Oh, yes, mamma couldn't let her little boy be sick and 
not take care of him!' 

"(A roar.) 'Yes, you could! Giz'e me some sugar.' 

"Here Fred arrived on the scene. The little tyrant soon 
was settled by being borne upon his father's shoulders up to 
his own room and going breakfastless. Fred talked more 
seriously now with you than ever before; and he persuaded 
you to try his way for a month, and if it seemed not better for 
the child you could go back to yours without more protest 
from himself. 

"At first it was very hard, but steady practice made it 
easier in time. 

" 'No, Donald, you can't have any more sugar' — this the 
next day: 

" 'Why not?' 

"You did not answer. 

" 'Why-y-y-y no-o-ot?' 

" 'Never mind why not. You can't have it.' 

[22] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

"A roar; but this time Fred was there. 'Donald !' he called 
across the table, 'will you stop, or shall papa take you up- 
stairs, just like yesterday?' 

'The child stopped suddenly on the half-cry and gazed 
through tears at his father, who looked at him sternly. 
Donald turned to you: 'Mamma, wipe Donnie's tears.' " 

That was the last conflict for sugar in his father's presence. 

"The struggle was much harder when you and Donald 
were alone; for you had taught him skill in argument, and 
indeed, yourself, too; and once the habit formed, much time 
was necessary to get both you and him out of it when 
there was not the restraint of the masculine presence. How- 
ever, the month saw great improvement, and your old ways 
have never been resumed. You learned then that the time 
for reasoning with a child is when he has no immediate 
personal interest in the matter." 

The ultimate attitude of a little child who has endeavored 
in vain to overawe a parent by an exhibition of temper, will 
usually be that expressed by the child who confessed: 

'T did run away, mamma; and Aunt Mary tied me up, and 
I hollered and kicked and hollered as loud as I could, but 
she never scared a bit. I guess — I guess I won't run away 
any more." 

Miss Agnes Repplier has a charming essay, entitled "In 
Behalf of Parents," in which she satirizes the mother who 
thinks it never proper to give or enforce a command until 
she has persuaded the child of its reasonableness. She con- 
trasts the parent who tells her Httle one forcefully to pull in 
his head from the open car window with another one who 
allowed herself to be confined for two days in a sleeping 
room in the company of an obstinate youngster who took an 
apparently satanic delight in holding her there until he had 
decided that he was persuaded of the justice of one of her 
suggestions. She retells the well-known story of the child 

[23] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

who was rushing, unconscious, to the top of a precipice, 
when he stopped suddenly and unquestioningly at the sharp 
command of his mother, and she asks what would have be- 
come of the child who had been allowed to wait and get ade- 
quate reasons, m such a moment of peril! 

Another habit of firmness is in seeing that the punishment 
invariably follows w^hen it has been promised. To tell a 
child, "If you do that again I must do something serious to 
make you remember," and then when the time comes, merely 
repeat the threat, is worse than folly. But, of course, one 
must be very careful in making the first statement. If one 
speaks in anger, or in haste, then there is the danger of in- 
justice, or over-severe punishment. First think whether you 
are doing the wisest, best thing, and then when the mind is 
made up as to the proper punishment, let it come with cool, 
even-handed justice, and one or two inflictions will cause 
the lesson to be remembered. 

Regarding firmness as an attitude, some comimonplace but 
sensible maxims are found in an excellent book by H. 
Bompas Smith, on discipline in school. They run as follows: 

"i. Never lose your head or your temper. 

"2. Make up your mind beforehand exactly what you 
will, and what you will not allow. 

''3. Make it perfectly clear what your standard is. 

"4. Always appear to take for granted that you will get 
vvhat you want. 

''5. Having said what you will do, do not change your 
mind if it can possibly be avoided. 

"6. Never let a boy off from kindness of heart. 

"7. Never threaten vaguely or indulge in general 
declamations. 

"8. Do not grumble or implore. 

"9. Do not be always nagging. 
"10. Never let a boy argue about his punishment. If he 

[24] 



THE PARENTS ATTITUDE 

approaches you in a proper way, listen to what he has to 
say and make him see that you desire to be reasonable, but 
never embark upon an altercation." 

The writer, by repeating so frequently the injunction never 
to punish in anger, has perhaps discouraged some parent. 
"What shall I do?" he asks ruefully. ''Shall I wait to fall 
upon a child when he comes up smiHng to me or when I too 
feel in a mood of tenderness, and correct him for some past 
misdeed?" Irritable as most of us are, we shall hardly 
err in too much gentleness. Dr. Felix Adler ingeniously 
allows us the mood which he calls "moral warmth"; but he 
really makes a valid and eternal distinction when he says 
that we must endeavor that this warmth be consistently held 
toward the offense and not toward the offender, so that the 
punishment shall not be of a bad boy but of a good boy whom 
we are trying to separate from badness. 

It is the opinion of many whose judgment is well worth 
heeding that the first day of a baby's life is not too soon to 
impress upon the dawning intelligence the necessity of sub- 
mission to circumstances and law, of obedience to authority 
and the value of self-control. For example. Dr. Emelyn L. 
CooHdge, an eminent specialist in the care of infants, declares: 

"The cry of temper should never be given in to or the 
mother will regret it later. Baby's training must be begun 
from the first day. He should not be rocked to sleep, 
trotted, nor walked the floor with, nor allowed to suck his 
thumb or 'pacifier.' All of these habits will soon have to be 
broken, so why begin them? He needs all the love he can 
get, but he should be made a happy little blessing, and not a 
naughty little tyrant." 

This seems a severe doctrine, but the last sentence ex- 
plains and justifies it. It has been sagaciously said that the 
moment the first, or any, baby arrives, the question presents 
itself, "Shall the house adjust itself to the baby, or the baby 

[25] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

to the house?" No one who has seen the former condition 
will uphold that policy. Family love may center about a 
baby, but there is no reason why all the family should be up- 
set for years by the whims of a little animal who hasn't the 
least idea of what he is about or how it affects others. If you 
have a puppy that is worth raising, you treat him substantially 
as well as you do your son or daughter, but you don't hesi- 
tate to compel him to behave himself, nor do you disarrange 
your usual manner of Hfe. The two animals are pretty 
closely alike for a while; and the mother might often save 
herself and her baby much trouble and sorrow then and 
afterward, if she took a hint from the method her husband 
uses with his precious puppy. Almost every mother has to 
decide very early whether she or the newcomer is to rule. 
'Tf his mother is a washerwoman, he gets no answer," as 
Ernest H. Abbott remarks. "She goes about her washing 
and he finds his place without much remonstrance. The chil- 
dren of the poor are blessed with mothers who have this 
problem settled for them by the gaunt hand of necessity. If, 
however, this lordling has been born in the purple, even of 
a very light shade, he has a good chance of seizing the scep- 
ter at the very first grasp. He certainly will seize it and 
wield it relentlessly, if his mother decides to do the easiest 
thing. Of course, there are cases which cannot be consid- 
ered normal. Ordinarily, however, the issue is not long 
postponed. Probably it will be most distinctly varied over 
a question of feeding. The foundation of an absolute mon- 
archy within many a plain American home has been laid by 
allowing the diminutive heir apparent to engage in midnight 
feasting when every consideration of orderliness commanded 
sleep." 

This does not necessarily imply harshness or a Spartan 
indifference to the httle one's discomfort, or refraining from 
the indulgent and comforting caresses which mean so much 

[26] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

to both mother and child. It is mostly the physical offenses 
that require parental hardness. After those requirements 
are satisfied there remain the intellectual and the spiritual 
ones, and these absolutely demand for their satisfaction those 
expressions of love which it is such a delight to render. 

Nevertheless, whether or not parents may have the 
courage or think it wise to decide the question of authority 
in the cradle, there is no question but that a baby accustomed 
to submit and adjust itself to circumstances and regulations 
will more easily take the next step, which is obedience. 

Can a "Good Fellow" be Firm? 

O'Shea discusses the question whether it is possible to 
maintain firmness in these days when a parent is a real com- 
panion to his child. "Can a father be a *good fellow' with 
his boys and train them in right living at the same time?" 
He answers the question in the affirmative: "The really com- 
petent trainer can do this. He can be on the most familiar 
terms with his children when the occasion permits of play 
relations; but when the situation demands coercion, or 
penalizing, he can assume the attitudes essential to the efH- 
cient performance of the task. In this way he can lead his 
children to properly evaluate their experiences and the va- 
rious lines of conduct which they might pursue. But one 
who is either 'easy' or severe under all circumstances, cannot 
give the young the right perspective in viewing the varied 
possibilities of action presented to them. In our American 
life we need to cultivate the type of trainer who can be a 
playfellow and at the same time a leader." 

One more remark needs to be made in reference to the 
attitude of parents to their children. This is concerning the 
necessity of absolute unity between a father and mother in 
home discipline. Mrs. Chenery quotes a father who said the 
successful management of their children had depended more 

[27] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

than anything else upon a resolution made by his wife and 
himself upon the birth of their first child. They determined 
that before their children they would have no differences, 
even in trivial matters. This made their word seem infallible. 
Griggs makes this thought apply especially to fathers 
when he urges that 'Tf a father sees his children little, 
except at mealtimes, he would better let many a fault in table 
manners go uncorrected, rather than give his children the 
notion that his main function is to reprove them." 



[28] 



CHAPTER III 
METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

Government by Suggestion 

Perhaps the most efficacious method of government, espe- 
cially of young children, is by suggestion. It is the method 
employed in the training of young animals. It is particularly 
appropriate in the years when a strong personality, quality 
of voice, expectancy of manner, produce an almost magical 
influence over the child of undeveloped will. It can be 
wielded with good results only when this strength of person- 
ality is the expression of the character of a parent who thinks 
of himself as the agent of righteousness. "One reason only 
do I allow my children," says the mother in Mrs, Chenery's 
book. "This is the right thing to do; we must do the right." 
So then the method of the parent is not that of arbitrary mas- 
tery but that of parental aid and advice, in helping the child to 
do the thing rightly — that is, because it is right. The re- 
sult of obedience on the part of the child to wisely-put sug- 
gestion from the parent is right habit, and, as Mrs. Wiggin 
says, "If we can but cultivate the habit of doing right, we 
enlist in our service one of the strongest of human agencies. 
Its momentum is so great that it may propel the child into 
the course of duty before he has time to discuss the question, 
or to parley with his conscience concerning it. 

"We must remember that 'force of character is cumulative, 
and all the foregone days of virtue work their health into 
this.' The task need not be begun afresh each morning; 
yesterday's strokes are still there, and today's efforts will 
make the carving deeper and bolder." 

An excellent illustration of a method of producing habitual 

[29] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

obedience by suggestive drill that eventuated in good habit 
is given in Mrs. Wood-Allen's "Making the Best of Our 
Children." A small boy, temporarily in the care of his aunt, 
showed a temperamental obstinacy that obstructed the atti- 
tude of docility. 

'Tt is evident," she said to herself, "that some irritable 
cells have been built into this little brain. If I could avoid 
arousing them, I should be glad ; but he must learn to obey. 
How can I teach this great lesson of obedience with the least 
friction ?" 

She pondered a moment. "Why not have an obedience 
drill, just as they have fire drills in schools? I'll do it, and 
I'll get little Anna Corning to help me." 

Little Anna, a bright girl of ten, was in no wise averse to 
spending the days in play with Robbie, and Miss Wallace 
explained to her what she wanted to do. 

"I am going to teach you a new play called 'Orders/ The 
game is to see which one can do what I order the most 
quickly. You will show Robbie how, and I think we can 
have great fun." 

A pointed paper cap with a paper plume was made for each 
child, and each carried a small flag. Miss Wallace explained 
such orders as "Mark time, march." "Forward, march," 
"Halt," etc., and, when these were learned, the drill be- 
gan. Back and forth the children marched, waving their 
flags to the right, to the left, over their heads, leaving the 
flags on a chair, bringing them to Aunt Clara, carry- 
ing them behind them, in front of them, in all possible 
positions. 

Robbie was delighted and never seemed to tire of the new 
game. During the two weeks that followed, little by little 
Miss Wallace introduced other orders, such as "Open the 
door," "Shut the door," "Bring that book," "Hang up your 
hat," etc., until Robbie grew so used to obeying in the play 

[30] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

that even at other times he automatically started at a word 
of command and obeyed without rebellion. 

One of the best facts about suggestion is that it is a thing 
that is always positive, and positive rather than negative in- 
fluences are the effective ones with children. 

"There are," says Jacob Abbott, "many cases in which, by 
the exercise of a little tact and ingenuity, the parent can 
actually secure the co-operation of the child in the infliction 
of the punishment prescribed for the curing of a fault. There 
are many advantages in this, when it can be done. It gives 
the child an interest in curing himself of the fault; it makes 
the punishment more effectual; and it removes almost all 
possibility of its producing any irritation or resentment in 
his mind. 

"Let us suppose that some day, while she is engaged with 
her sewing or other household duties, and her children are 
playing around her, she tells them that in some great schools 
in Europe, when the boys are disobedient, or violate the 
rules, they are shut up for punishment in a kind of prison ; or 
perhaps she entertains them with invented examples of boys 
that would not go to prison, and had to be taken there 
by force, and kept there longer on account of their con- 
tumacy; and also of other noble boys, tall and handsome, 
and the best players on the grounds, who went readily when 
they had done wrong and were ordered into confinement, 
and bore their punishment like men, and who were accord- 
ingly set free all the sooner on that account. Then she pro- 
poses to them the idea of adopting that plan herself, and asks 
them to look all about the room and find a good seat which 
they can have for a prison — one end of the sofa, perhaps, a 
stool in a corner, or a box used as a house for a kitten. I 
once knew an instance where a step before a door leading to 
a staircase served as a penitentiary, and sitting on it for a 
minute or less was the severest punishment required to main- 

[31] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

tain the most perfect discipline in a family of young children 
for a long time." 

Government by Words 

Another method of government is by words. The child 
must learn to obey clear and definite words before he can 
obey abstract ideals. Several remarks must be made about 
"word of command." 

We must be sure that what we say is actually heard and 
clearly understood. It is creditable to a child that he can be 
so intent upon his play that he does not hear us speak; it 
shows that he is a child of parts. 

A very frequent reason why children do not obey is that 
they do not attend, and so do not hear a command. Any 
request we make should be made in such a way as to dis- 
lodge everything else from the consciousness while we are 
speaking. To this end, it is well never to give an order until 
the child looks us squarely in the face and only while he is 
thus looking attentively at us. Such a habit is as good drill 
for attention as it is for obedience. 

It is not uncommon for an unwilling child so to steel 
himself against orders which he knows are likely to be un- 
pleasant that after a while he actually does not hear them. 
In such a case the deafness will be corrected only after the 
child's attitude has become altered. 

Elizabeth Harrison thinks that a child should usually be 
given rational grounds for a command calmly and in an im- 
personal way, and then be given time and quiet to conquer 
himself, and obey, but Mrs. Chenery believes that, for the 
child's protection, he should be given explanations after 
obedience rather than before. Probably we are all agreed 
that it can do no harm to give reasons for our commands, 
when they are such that a child can appreciate. 
There is a difference among children, as we can soon find out, 

[32] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

as to their response to moral homilies. Sully cites the boy 
who listened with apparent impression to his mother's se- 
rious talk one day, but who closed the colloquy with the ob- 
servation: "Mamma, when you talk you don't move your 
upper jaw." 

Sarcasm is a kind of word-discipline which ought to be 
pretty nearly abolished in dealing with children. Says Du- 
Bois : 

"There are certain elements which make practical jokes, 
as a rule, obnoxious. They are: Implied superiority on the 
part of the joker, and embarrassing ignorance, defect, or 
weakness on the part of the victim (note that victim is the 
accepted word); hence the ludicrous mental confusion or 
shame of the latter. In a greater or less degree these ele^ 
ments are present in the facetious treatment of children, and 
are seldom altogether absent from the most good-natured 
fun that is 'poked at' them." 

It seldom does good — never in moments of stress — ^to 
reminisce. A forgiven fault should be forgotten, an error 
of which the child is ashamed should not be continually 
dragged like a skeleton in the closet to light, and a dereliction 
of yesterday ought not to be used to shed discouragement 
upon today. Warnings, of course, drawn from past fail- 
ures, are sometimes helpful as lighthouses, but, in general, 
hopefulness for the uncharted future is more constructive 
than the revisioning of a wrecked past. 

Government by word should be by means of the fewest 
words possible, but those timely, decisive, cheerful, and not 
domineering, challenging to obstinacy or irritating to wrath. 

P Government Through Choice 

Another method of government is by giving the opportunity 
for a choice. Mrs. Chenery believes that when a mother tells 
a child to do a thing she should expect her to do it, but if 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

she asks a favor of her the child should have the privilege 
of refusing. It may be somewhat difficult to make this dis- 
tinction, but it seems worth while to consider the possibility. 
It is easy to ask too much of the willing little hands and feet, 
and turning their help into a burden could make the children 
ungracious. Miss Harrison thinks that even in the matter 
of punishment there should be opportunity for choice. She 
cites the instance of a little girl of six, who was vexed by 
some trifle, and who thereupon set up a lusty bawl. Her 
mother stood without the slightest tone of disturbance in 
her voice, and said: ''Charlotte, your noise is disturbing the 
rest of us. You must either stop bawling or go up to the 
nursery where you can be by yourself." The child contin- 
ued to bawl, and the mother took out her watch and said: 
'T will give you just two minutes to cease your bawling and 
remain with us, or go up to the nursery." She stood per- 
fectly still, holding her watch in her hand. At the end of 
the two minutes she said: 'The two minutes are up. You 
have made your choice." And with the watch still in her 
hand she pointed to the door. The youngster deliberately 
turned around and walked out of the room and upstairs, still 
continuing to bawl. 

It is probably best to give the opportunity of choice even 
in some things that are definitely forbidden. Instead of 
forcibly restraining the child who is on the way to disobey, 
it may be better to allow the act to continue once, so long as 
it is without immediate danger, and then enforce the penalty 
that shall prevent its occurring again. Mrs. Wood-Allen 
gives the following incident of treatment of a httle one who 
had been told that he must not go outside the gate. He had 
disobeyed once, after being warned, and had been tied up. 
"He, of course, was not pleased with this restriction. 
Mamma talked with him very seriously and explained that 
he must not go outside the gate, and then released him. 

[34] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

Again he disobeyed and again was promptly tied, and this 
was repeated until he came to understand, without any scold- 
ing or without the infliction of physical pain, that the yard 
was a domain wherein he could play with perfect freedom, 
but if he went outside he lost this freedom. It, therefore, 
remained for him to decide which he would do, — be free 
within the prescribed limits or, going beyond, lose his 
freedom." 

The purpose of management by utilizing the choice of a 
child is the gradual development of his will-power. The 
intent is to m.ake him choose to do right, not to force him to. 



[35] 



CHAPTER IV 
GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

We come now to the perplexing question of government 
by piimsJiment. There are many false and imperfect ways 
of administering punishment. Some parents seem to regard 
it chiefly as a "right" that belongs to them.. Without deny- 
ing this as a fact, it seems sufficient to say that the satisfaction 
of the parent in punishing is the least of all the elements 
concerned. Pimishment as an expression of the self-asser- 
tion of the parent, as an exercise to relieve his mind, as an 
act of revenge or anger, is unworthy of a sensible adult. It 
has even been questioned whether we have the right to use 
punishment as a means of deterrence by fear. On the whole 
it would appear that for the young child's self-protection 
it may sometimes be necessary to cause him to pause, appre- 
ciate his danger and avoid possible peril. This we can some- 
times do by instilling fear of consequences. 

The chief purpose of punishment, of course, is to correct 
the harm. By this is meant, not to prevent the child from 
performing a particularly wrong act, but so to guide him 
that he will form the habit of choosing right conduct instead. 
'Tt is an error," says O'Shea, ''to suppose that the punish- 
ment must be necessarily useless in itself; it may even render 
the offender physically or mentally more able." It ought to 
help in self-control, awaken a love for virtue and retain the 
respect and favor of the child to its parent. As Griggs says: 
'The rage of the one punishing does not prove the punish- 
ment bad, but corrective discipline does little for moral ref- 
ormation, unless we can reason with the offender to assent 
to its justice, if not his will to its reception." 

[36] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

The government that teaches ought to have the following 
qualities, which Mrs. Wiggin names in her "Children's 
Rights": 

"i. The discipline should be thoroughly in harmony with 
child-nature in general, and suited to the age and develop- 
ment of the particular child in question. 

"2. It should appeal to the higher motives, and to the 
higher motives alone. 

"3. It should develop kindness, helpfulness and sympathy. 

"4. It should never use weapons which would tend to 
lower the child's self-respect. 

"5. It should be thoroughly just, and the punishment, or 
rather the retribution, should be commensurate with the 
offense. 

"6. It should teach respect for law, and for the rights of 
others. 

"Finally, it should teach 'voluntary obedience, the last 
lesson in life, the choral song which rises from all elements 
and all angels,' and, as the object of true discipline is the 
formation of character, it should produce a human being 
master of his impulses, his passions, and his will." 

"Natural" Punishment 

We usually say of punishment that it should be, if possible, 
natural, by which we mean that it should be similar in char- 
acter to the offense. Natural punishment is also imitative 
of the result which the offense, if unchecked, would be likely 
to produce. Every parent learns that he must be brave 
enough to allow his child to be taught in what is, to the child, 
the most impressive way, vis.: gaining knowledge by ex- 
perience. Says one of our wisest parents: 

"They must learn, they crave for experience, and if they do 
not cause suffering in another, and if they do not suffer them- 
selves, how can they fully understand? To bring trouble 

[371 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

on himself is to gain experience, is to fully grasp the conse- 
quences of his act; the boy is thus led to abstain from 
such acts in the future. Hence, anger, passion, envy, 
and many other actions in the child are self-correcting, 
self-arresting. 

'Tf a boy were reared under such conditions that he never 
saw a fight, never was in one, and he never suffered from 
his own foolishness, what sort of a man would he make? 
The very best way to sharpen a boy's wits and to cure him 
from wanting to ride every fractious horse that his father 
owns, is to let him ride. Life is in living, it is an indefinite 
struggle and fight, and the boy who never did a foolish 
thing, never did a wise one." 

A natural punishment imitates nature in the fact that it is 
both just and certain. ''It is never withheld," says Mrs. 
Wiggin, ''in weak affection, it is never given in anger, it is 
entirely disassociated from personal feeling. No poisoned 
arrow of injustice remains rankling in the child's breast; no 
rebellious feeling that the parent has taken advantage of his 
superior strength to inflict the punishment: it is perceived 
to be absolutely fair, and, being fair, it must be although 
painful, yet satisfactory to that sense of justice which is a 
passion of childhood." It is even possible thus to present 
corporal punishment to a child's reason. 'T taught my little 
daughter," said a mother, "that little animals had no reason- 
ing powers and had to be whipped, and that if she changed 
herself into a little wild animal she must be trained as we 
train such creatures." 

One of the chief uses of "natural" punishment is that it is 
a help to convince the child of the rightfulness and wisdom 
of the authority of the parent. To tell a child to keep away 
from the fire might bring rebellion until doomsday, when one 
touch of the flame becomes at once convincing. It, there- 
fore, becomes a temporary means of government, a stage 

138] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

toward the safe and cheerful acceptance of the parental 
authority and wisdom. 

"Natural" punishment, however, has its limitations. It 
is not always real punishment. Says Griggs: 

"The natural consequence of slovenly table-manners is 
exclusion from the society of the family at mealtime. Often 
a child likes nothing better; and, surely, to allow him to be 
as slovenly as he pleases alone is not to cure him of the fault, 
but to deprive him of just the example of good manners that 
may finally impress itself upon him. So the gluttonous child 
needs not to be allowed to gorge himself and then to suffer 
the natural consequences, — physical discomfort, and ulti- 
mately disease, with the increasing disgust of those about 
him, — but to be held persistently to rigid self-denial until the 
habit of controlling his appetites is formed. The child who 
is personally dirty needs to be held to regular habits of order 
and cleanliness, the over-imaginative child to definite and 
exact statement of reality." 

Other limitations of the range of "natural" punishment 
are obvious. One of these Hmitations is that of safety. The 
natural result of letting a child hang out of a window would 
be that he would break his neck, but we do not let him go to 
such a length. In the higher realms of influence "natural" 
punishments are less successful. The natural result of a 
child's lying is that nobody believes anything he says, yet it 
is when he is just falling a prey to this habit that the mother 
endeavors to encourage his telling the truth by insisting on 
believing in his word. Thus often the corrective discipline 
that will be most effective in curing the child of the fault 
is the exact opposite of the way it would work out if 
uninterrupted. 

The futility of merely "natural" punishment as soon as a 
child is old enough to have a conscience is clearly pointed 
out in an investigation made by Tracy. Thirty-eight per 

I39] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

cent of the children said that punishment was just "because 
the children ought to obey," while only six per cent thought 
it should be inflicted to make them more careful in the future. 
In other words, the children themselves seem to insist that 
punishments should be regulative of the inner life and not 
merely outworkings of natural law. 

"The attempted reduction of moral law to natural law is 
simply an attempt to get rid of moral law altogether. It 
entirely ignores the element of personahty, and dilutes re- 
sponsibility by placing accidents that are followed by physical 
pain on exactly the same level as moral dereliction. Accord- 
ing to this 'discipline of consequences,' it should be just as 
wrong to stumble and hurt one's self as to disobey one's par- 
ents and be punished. But any child knows better than this 
without special instruction. The doctrine, moreover, utterly 
confuses the child's moral perspective by teaching him (by 
implication) that no action of his is wrong provided he can 
manage to escape its painful consequences." 

Punishment by Deprivation 
Perhaps the best of all "natural" punishments, because the 
most easily understood, is that of deprivation. 

"Suppose a child is greedy at the table and eats with 
perfect indifference to all the manners which have been 
taught him; after some such exhibition a mother may talk 
to him about his faults and explain that he has no right to 
spoil the comfort of others, and say that if he repeats his 
objectionable ways he must lose his dessert the next time. 
Perhaps the very day following he forgets, and repeats his 
ofifenses ; his mother may whisper in his ear a reminder which 
goes unheeded; but when the dessert comes to the table 
and he may have none, the punishment is so felt that it 
need not be repeated for several days, and a few experi- 
ences will accomplish a complete cure. If only one is firm. 

[40] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

and relentless, this is an unfailing way to secure one's 
end." 

So with quarreling; children who will spoil the peace of 
the home by squabbles and fights may have a penalty of 
exactly the same kind, and have to spend an hour or more 
alone on Saturday, a deprivation which they will keenly feel. 
Any loss of pleasures is a real punishment. Many a boy 
would far rather take a whipping and then go fishing with the 
other boys than to have to stay at home and see them go 
without him; and so the very essence of punishment is 
secured. 

"As children grow out of childhood, deprivation as punish- 
ment still has some validity. A girl who spends all her 
week's allowance and has to go without something she wishes 
for, or even something she really needs, is being punished 
in this way. A boy who must give up an anticipated trip 
to town because he has done wrong, remembers it for weeks 
and does not repeat the offense. But, of course, it is unjust 
on ordinary occasions suddenly to punish a child without 
warning. It is better at a first offense to do nothing radical, 
but rather explain the wrong, and say that it must not be 
repeated, or such and such things must follow." 

In the use of deprivation it is really the idea of punishment, 
more than the thing itself, which is effective. One mother 
devised a system by preparing little squares of blue and 
white paper; when a child had been naughty it had to put 
one or more blue squares in a box; and when it had been 
good all day it put in white ones at night; at the end of the 
week, if the white squares predominated, there was a reward, 
and if the blue, none at all. Nothing could have been more 
simple, but it worked to a charm. 

Madame Montessori tells how ingeniously she works out 
the idea of deprivation in her famous school: 

"As to punishments, we have many times come in contact 

[41] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

with children who disturbed the others without paying any 
attention to our corrections. Such children were at once 
examined by the physician. When the case proved to be that 
of a normal child, we placed one of the little tables in a cor- 
ner of the room, and in this way isolated the child; having" 
him sit in a comfortable little armchair, so placed that he 
might see his companions at work, and giving him those 
games and toys to which he was most attracted. This isola- 
tion almost always succeeded in calming the child; from his 
position he could see the entire assembly of his companions, 
and the way in which they carried on their work was an object 
lesson much more efficacious than any words of the teacher 
could possibly have been. Little by little, he would come to 
see the advantages of being one of the company working so 
busily before his eyes, and he would really wish to go back 
and do as the others did. We have in this way led back 
again to discipline all the children who at first seemed to 
rebel against it. The isolated child was always made the 
object of special care, almost as if he were ill. I myself, 
when I entered the room, went first of all directly to him, 
caressing him, as if he were a very little child. Then I turned 
my attention to the others, interesting myself in their work, 
asking questions about it as if they had been Httle men. I 
do not know what happened in the soul of these children 
whom we found it necessary to discipline, but certainly, the 
conversion was always very complete and lasting." 

The old-fashioned punishments of putting a child in the 
closet or sending him supperless to bed have been rather 
forgotten, and wisely. A child is too often made afraid of 
the dark by the first punishment, and physically injured by 
the second. It is just as effective to put a child alone in a 
lighted room, and let him sit in one chair for a time, as to 
put him in a dark closet, and a supper of bread and milk, 
eaten all alone in the nursery, is better than no supper at all. 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

The method of deprivation is especially effective in cases of 
disobedience. Says Carolyn Sherwin Bailey: 

"The child who is disobedient should not be scolded. He 
forfeits something, instead, loses some joy perhaps because 
he broke a law. He was forbidden to leave the garden, to 
go alone across the street, but, childlike, he forgets and 
opens the forbidden gate, following the mirage of his imme- 
diate desire. Nancy's mother, many mothers in fact, would 
follow this disobedient child, bringing him back screaming 
and unrepentant, but the wise mother waits for the return 
of the little wanderer, who conies home to find his punish- 
ment awaiting him. It is nothing which his mother inflicts 
upon him, mercilessly. It is the punishment that he, himself, 
metes out. His dearest friend came to play while he was 
across the road enjoying in the dust and sun the spirit of the 
Wanderlust. His mother could not allow his little friend to 
stay, though. How could she, or how could she save him the 
little tart pie she baked, or let him go for a long delightful 
drive to the village with grandfather when he was not there? 
A little boy who runs away loses all those charming surprises. 
It is purely his own fault that he lost his playmate, the little 
tart, and the drive with grandfather. He understands all 
this. He is his own punishment, and his mother acts the 
part of the comforter rather than judge as she explains to him 
the unwisdom of putting the forbidden gate between his own 
small self and his little daily joys. 

"Does this seem a simple, inefficient means of punishing 
a child? It is vastly more efficient than pointless scolding 
and physical force. The former dulls a child mentally, and 
the latter warps him both mentally and physically. The 
method of depriving a child of some pleasure as a result of 
his disobedience is such a reasonable punishment that it 
makes a deep impression on the child's plastic brain tissue, 
and is recalled the next time he is tempted to disobey. He 

[43] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

invades the pantry and eats forbidden sweets. As a result 
he has no sweets for several days — how could he when he 
ate them all? He upsets his father's inkwell, spoiling books 
and papers on the library table. He is required to assist in 
cleaning the table, but no further notice of his carelessness 
is taken. The next day, the next week, possibly he sees a 
fascinating new book in the toy shop which he wants, oh, so 
much, but the book is denied him. How can he be given a 
new and beautiful book when he was so careless as to spoil 
with spilled ink his father's precious volumes? A few such 
deprivations will suffice to cure a child of any habits of dis- 
obedience. It will be a wholesome cure, too, brought about 
naturally by the child himself and at the expense of no 
nervous strain on the part of the mother. He learns to 
weigh his actions, asking himself what will be their con- 
sequences as far as he, himself, is concerned. Gradually he 
forms this habit of forethought, weighing in the balance the 
possible result of his disobedience upon the world at large 
— and at last wins out in the fight. He learns to obey." 

Corporal Punishment 
We now come to the most difficult question of all, that of 
corporal punishment. This, which was once the chief means of 
correction, is being superseded by other modes of control. 
All of us recognize that it must be administered with the great- 
est caution. We have, we may hope, outgrown forever the 
period when civilized parents spanked to relieve their own 
minds. In the discipline of young children, where the parent 
is both judge and executioner, the most impartial justice 
and perfect self-control are required, if corporal punishment 
is ever to be administered. A child may seem to deserve to 
be treated like an animal, but we don't wish our treatment 
to make him into an animal. The child has trouble enough 
in adjusting his Httle body, without having his delicate 

[44] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

nervous structure continually upset by shaking or other 
physical assaults. Edison tells how a box on the ear, ad- 
ministered by an angry man, made him deaf for life. No 
child should ever know the indignity and danger of a blow 
on the head or face. George Eliot advocated "a little tin- 
gling in soft, safe places.'' Surely no one could ever hear 
the long-continued and agonizing cries of a child upon 
whom pain has been inflicted without realizing that such a 
method of punishment can never be justifiable, except as it 
may prevent some worse ill. Lady Isabel Margesson 
thinks that, "Few parents, perhaps only one in a hundred, 
are to be trusted to administer it wisely." 

The argument for corporal punishment is that obstinacy 
and insubordination require the application of force as a 
corrective. "Obedience," says Carl Werner, "is the founda- 
tion-stone of the entire structure of discipline. There is a 
good deal in discipline besides obedience, but without obe- 
dience there is no discipline. Disobedience calls for 3, punish- 
ment that is short, direct and impressive. A sharp tap on 
the palm of a boy's hand, or on the calf of his leg — or two or 
five or ten — is the only kind of penance I know of, that fills 
the requirements. It is the one short and sure road to an 
immediate result. NaturaHsts tell us that the sense of touch 
is the first experienced by the new-born child. It is the 
first and quickest wire from the outer world to the brain. 
Then come hearing and smelling and seeing, and long 
after these come the moral perceptions — the power of de- 
duction, of right and wrong. My experience has been 
that this first sense continues to be the live wire until 
well on toward the maturity of the child — if the child is 
a boy. 

"Corporal punishment is resorted to for one kind of 
offense only — disobedience. Absolutely for no other. 

"Corporal punishment consists of a few sharp taps on the 

[45] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

palm or calf with a thin wood ruler, having no metal attached 
to it. 

'The boy is never punished in the presence of a third 
person, even a brother or sister. 

"Punishment is never administered with the slightest sign 
of anger or under excitement. 

''Punishment must partake of the nature of a ceremony 
rather than of a torture; it must be regarded as a duty; not 
as a personal retahation. 

"Punishment is always prefaced with a simple, brief, but 
definite explanation, like this: 

" 'My boy, Hsten: I love you and I do not Hke to hurt you. 
But every boy must be made to obey his father and mother, 
and this seems to be the only way to make you do it. So 
remember ! Every time you disobey me you shall be pun- 
ished. When I tell you to do a thing, you must do it in- 
stantly, without a moment's delay. If you hesitate, if you 
wait to be told the second time, you will be punished. When 
I speak, you must act. Just as sure as you are standing 
here before me, this punishment will follow every time you 
do not do as you are told.' " 

Children themselves, according to O'Shea, Barnes and 
Darrah, often regard whipping as the just and reasonable 
penalty for certain misdeeds. "If," says O'Shea, "it be 
plainly merited, it probably does not crush the spirit of the 
offender, as the philosopher sitting in his armchair and work- 
ing with preconceived premises sometimes reasons that it 
will. If a child is in continual conflict with his social environ- 
ment because he insists on doing what, in the nature of things, 
he cannot do, and day after day there is verbal contest 
between himself and those who are responsible for his 
well-being, then would it not be better for all concerned 
occasionally to have the question of leadership definitely 
settled by the application of force, if necessary?" In this 

[46] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

view of the case corporal punishment is "natural" punish- 
ment, for the representatives of law and order have the right 
to be reckoned with when we are counting the consequences 
of deeds. On the other hand, corporal punishment is not 
to be resorted to on every occasion. If a boy is always 
whipped for certain kinds of wrong-doing, he is apt to reach 
the conclusion that everything for which he is not whipped 
(or everything in which he is not found out) is permissible. 
Corporal punishment by wholesale is a judgment upon the 
carelessness, indolence and cruelty of the parents. Said 
Horace Mann: "I confess that I have been amazed and over- 
whelmed, to see a teacher spend an hour at the blackboard, 
explaining arithmetical questions, and another hour on the 
reading or grammar lessons ; and, in the meantime, as though 
it were only some interlude, seize a boy by the collar, drag 
him to the floor, castigate him, and remand him to his seat, 
— the whole process not occupying two minutes. Such labori- 
ous processes for the intellect, such summary dealings with 
the heart !" 

There is no way of deciding beforehand on general prin- 
ciples, just what remedy will be used for a particular moral 
malady of a child. Lady Isabel Margesson gives the follow- 
ing prescription for a case of habitual noisy crying: 

'The casual 'slap' or 'smack' administered in a hasty spirit, 
often only enrages a child, and should never be given. If, 
on the contrary, there is a passion for crying, and one can 
see the child is giving himself up to temper, then it is highly 
desirable to put him to bed, turn him over on his face and 
give him a sound whipping. He should be left alone to cry 
for a minute or two, although the passion and fury may seem 
at first even to increase. After he has found relief in tears, 
is the time for some explanation and talk about obed'ence 
and crying. Probably the result will be a fresh outburst, 
and then a second whipping should be given, and again the 

[47] 



. THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

child should be left alone for a short time. After this he 
begins to feel he gains nothing by crying, and for fear of 
another 'dose' begins to exert self-control. This is the mo- 
ment when he will probably listen to a gentle, rambling, ex- 
planatory talk and story of another child. After being left 
alone and quiet for a time he should be fondled and kissed, 
and his mother's love, in trying to help him to be obedient, 
explained. The whole occasion may be made very impres- 
sive if, before leaving his bed, the child says his prayers with 
his mother's arms round him. He should afterwards be 
allowed to stay with his mother and occupy himself happily 
and quietly for an hour or two. This detailed account of a 
'whipping' has been given because it has been the successful 
experience of many years, and has borne the following good 
results: 

"i. It cuts short a passionate outburst that may have 
dangerous physical effects, and prevents its ever reaching its 
full strength. 

"2. It impresses a child's mind with the necessity for 
obedience, for he does not easily forget such an impressive 
function which is made purposely to center round the term 
obedience. 

"3. It gives him a real power of self-control on future 
occasions when a repetition will be known to be imminent. 

'''4. It saves a child from worrying little penalties and 
naggings. He must obey, or he will have to undergo the 
same process again. It is not, therefore, necessary to worry 
him with constant threatenings of placing him in the corner, 
slapping him, putting him to bed, depriving him of pleasures. 
The child obeys because he recognizes and dislikes the one 
consequence of disobeying. Gradually the idea of obedience, 
the necessity for giving up his own way cheerfully, dawns on 
him, and the contest, with a few intermittent storms, is over." 

Two items of common sense about punishment ought to be 

[48] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

remembered. One is about promptness in correction. Chil- 
dren's memories are so short that they feel a sense of injus- 
tice for being sent to bed early or deprived of some pleasure 
after they have forgotten what the punishment is for or at 
least have ceased to feci the enormity of the offense. The 
other is about the unfortunate habit some parents have of 
using bedtime as the Day of Judgment. As the talk grows 
more serious the tired child gets more nervous and usually 
ends with a cry. Now a child should always go to sleep 
happily or else his rest is unrefreshing, and he has the poor- 
est kind of preparation for being good the next day. 

There is, however, a beautiful way to utilize bedtime, if 
the child is in a normal condition, for a loving and construc- 
tive motivation. We quote here Doctor LeGrand Kerr: 

'Tt is usually best to introduce the subject for correction 
in a roundabout way, beginning, perhaps, with a story which 
in its main features parallels the thing which needs correc- 
tion. Fictitious names may be used and the child is then led 
into expressing an opinion as to the various acts of these 
fictitious persons. Even while the story is being told, he may 
see an analogy between it and his own acts. Then, when the 
child has made his decision, clinch it quickly with just as few 
words as possible and make a short appeal to the child's 
better nature. Do not sermonize. Then follow with the 
word of encouragement, T know that you are going to try 
to do better after this ; you can be good and you are going 
to, I know.' Then comes the word of good cheer and 
caresses; the child is left happy, contented and more ame- 
nable to moral guidance." 

Whatever the form of punishment which, after deliberation, 
we think it best to use, we need to recall again just what the 
purpose of punishment is. Let us have it in the concise 
words of Kirtley: 

*When punishment is truly deserved, it must be given and 

[49] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

the occasion made an epoch in the life of the boy. It is not 
to be made an end in itself, nor a matter of retribution, nor 
any one's vindication, but an education to the boy. It must, 
first of all, bring him back to the line of rectitude from which 
he departed. It must awaken in him, not alone a sense of 
the majesty of right and truth, but a new desire to conform 
his life to it. It must be the means of starting a new habit 
and giving him a new attitude of mind toward what is right, 
and a new respect for those who stand in this severe way for 
what is right and true, a new respect for himself, which 
comes through self-reproach and then self-rectification. It 
must promote every virtue in him and reinforce every worthy 
motive. That must be the aim of the one who inflicts the 
punishment, or his deed is worse than the boy's offense." 



[50] 



CHAPTER V 
GOVERNMENT BY REWARD 

Another method of government is that by means of 
reward. We all recognize that this is a stimulation that 
needs to be used in small doses. Mrs. Wiggin says, 'The 
child deHghts to work for you, to please you if he can, to do 
his tasks well enough to win your favorable notice, and the 
breath of praise is sweet to his nostrils. It is right and justi- 
fiable that he should have this praise, and it will be an aid to 
his spiritual development, if bestowed with discrimination. 
Only Titanic strength of character can endure constant dis- 
couragement and failure, and yet work steadily onward, and 
the weak, undeveloped human being needs a word of ap- 
proval now and then to show him that he is on the right 
track, and that his efforts are appreciated. Of course, the 
kind and the frequency of the praise bestowed depend en- 
tirely upon the nature of the child." The reward of praise 
is usually safe if it be just, but it is not safe to exclaim of a 
fairly good accompHshment, ''Splendid! Perfect!" for it is 
not true that it is splendid, and nothing could possibly be 
perfect. To praise extravagantly is to make the superlative 
so cheap that it is no longer valued. The child thus becomes 
easily satisfied with mediocre attainments. 

The use of physical rewards for virtue tends to substitute 
wrong inducement. "There are," says Mrs. Wiggin, "of 
course, certain simple rewards which can be used with safety, 
and which the child easily sees to be the natural results of 
good conduct. If his treatment of the household pussy has 
been kind and gentle, he may well be trusted with a pet of 
his own; if he puts his toys away carefully when asked to do 

[SI] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

so, father will notice the neat room when he comes home; 
if he learns his lessons well and quickly, he will have the 
more time to work in the garden; and the suggestion of these 
natural consequences is legitimate and of good effect. 

"It is always safer, no doubt, to appeal to a love of pleasure 
in children than to a fear of pain, yet bribes and extraneous 
rewards inevitably breed selfishness and corruption, and lead 
the child to expect conditions in life which will never be 
realized. Though retribution of one kind or another follows 
quickly on the heels of wrong-doing, yet virtue is commonly 
its own reward, and it is as well that the child should learn 
this at the beginning of life." 

Government by Emulation 

There is a similar danger in government by emulation. It 
was Walter Savage Landor who defined ambition as "avarice 
on stilts." Doing well for the sake either of physical reward 
or of outdoing a competitor is at its best only an ugly kind 
of virtue. Says George McDonald, "No work noble or last- 
ingly good can come of any emulation where the motive is 
greed. I think the two motives are spiritually the same." 
It is hard to encourage a young child to emulate a super- 
excellent brother or neighbor without causing him to look 
upon the one whom he emulates with at least mild hatred 
and envy. 

Government by Activity 

Government by activity refers to everything which 
we suggest in the direction of positive action on the part of 
the child, or in place of whatever would hinder all that happy, 
eager doing which itself is self-government. 

The parent who takes her children as her partners in 
the work of the home and who becomes their partner in their 
play has chosen not only the easiest but the most productive 
way of government. In thus living with her children a real 

[52] 



GOVERNMENT BY REWARD 

life, she has the opportunity to help them expel the evil by 
doing the good, as she becomes to them alternately play- 
fellow and leader. 

This subject is treated in some fullness in the chapter on 
"Religious Nurture" under the caption, "Teaching about 
Duty." 

The discussion has shown us that no one form of 
management is infallible or universal in application. The 
parent himself must take each child, each case and each 
remedy separately and study each and all before he prescribes 
from his moral-medicine chest. 



[53] 



CHAPTER VI 
SEX DISCIPLINE 

Whatever be the differences of opinion of scholars as to 
the advisabiUty of sex instruction in the schools, they are all 
united as to its necessity in the home. The great task, there- 
fore, is to prepare fathers and mothers for this important 
duty. 

The best authorities are telling us that what the child 
needs is not a single lecture covering all the branches of the 
subject, but information at different periods suited to the 
needs of each period; that information alone is not preventive 
of vice; that the strength for pure living must come from 
within rather than without, and that sex idealism is much 
more important than sex instruction. In the search for an 
inclusive term which should embrace this large program 
which we are endeavoring to compass, the phrase "sex dis- 
cipline" has been fixed upon as suitable for the purpose. 

Methods 
The methods by which the parent may discipline his son are 
these: First, by answering his questions; second, by always 
telling him the truth; third, by satisfying his legitimate 
curiosity at each stage of boyhood; fourth, by furnishing him 
a series of facts as he needs them, either by telling them to 
him or by reading them to him, as one may think better; fifth, 
by questioning him at times in order to discover if there is 
more that he ought to know; sixth, by keeping his confidence 
so that he may miss no knowledge nor inspiration that will 
be helpfuj to him ; seventh, by defending him so far as possible 
against unnecessary temptation and error. 

I 54] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

Who Is the Best One To Do It? 

This parental task cannot be done in the best way by 
means of books. Many books upon this subject are unin- 
teresting. Some are shallow and void of information. 
Some tell too little to give instruction, and others tell so 
much that they excite undesirable emotions. The special 
book which may fall into a boy's hands is pretty certain not 
to be graded for that boy's intelHgence, and being ready-made 
it usually omits the answer to the call of the moment. For 
small boys such books are usually full of faith when 
what the small boy needs is facts. For large boys they 
are often too pathological and lack the needed element of 
inspiration. 

All such books are best used by parents. They give the 
information which the parent himself needs. It is occasion- 
ally wise, when the parent is unusually timid, for him to lend 
such a book to his son. If he does so, he should either read 
it to him or see that the boy actually reads it and then help 
interpret it to him. In other words, the book is loaned to 
the boy as an entering wedge to a frank conversation. Such 
books, when loaned, should be taken back by the parent 
after they are used. Otherwise they may pass into the hands 
of other boys whose parents are unwihing that they should 
read them or to whom they are unsuitable. 

Physicians are not the best persons to perform this task. 
Some of them are too technical in their expressions; others 
are too cynical in the attitude toward humanity; a few of 
them are themselves loose-livers. Some scare boys by their 
manner ; others invariably suggest disease. Few of them are 
natural pedagogues. Since the information which boys 
should have cannot be given them in one lesson, a single 
consultation with a physician is inadequate. To turn a boy 
over to a doctor does not lessen the fact that the parent is 
responsible for the son. 

155] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Occasionally, where the physician is well known and the 
parent has had a previous conversation with the boy upon 
the matter, it may be well in later boyhood to allow the boy 
to go to the doctor ''for the fullest information," so that he 
may feel that nothing has been concealed that he ought to 
know. In such a case, the parent should always ask the 
boy afterward what the doctor has said, and use this also as 
an entering wedge for free conversation. 

Whenever the boy needs slight surgical attention, of 
course he should wait upon a physician in company with his 
father, and certain instruction may be appropriate at that 
consultation. 

Teachers are not the best persons to do this work. They 
are not so well informed as physicians and there is often a 
barrier between them and their pupils. In this kind of edu- 
cation alone w^e try to sate and not stimulate curiosity. The 
schoolroom, the atmosphere of which is that of curiosity, 
therefore does not seem to give quite the right environment 
for this kind of instruction. Gymnasium instructors some- 
times work under favorable circumstances to reinforce the 
instruction of the father. 

Ministers are not the best persons for this Avork. Through 
earnestness they are apt to scare children and more apt to 
moralize than to instruct. Their attitude toward these 
matters, while generally w^holesome, sometimes smacks of 
sentimentality or an unduly ascetic view of life. 

Professional lecturers and so-called "experts" are not the 
best people to help boys. So many people who study the 
subject of sex become morbid upon it that we may wisely 
distrust even the character of those who give themselves 
entirely to this kind of teaching. Since it is not a social 
subject, it does not lend itself to public gatherings. PubHc 
instruction must necessarily be vague and ill-adapted to the 
individual. Lectures on purity, which English boys call 

[56] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

"smut jaws," are often followed by unwholesome conversa- 
tion between boys and may tend toward impurity rather than 
morality. 

The Periods of Boyhood 

There is a general unanimity of agreement among those 
who have studied the matter that there are three periods 
of boyhood, each of which has its own individual character- 
istics. These are, roughly speaking, the years before eight, 
the years between nine and fourteen, and the years after 
fifteen; or the primary years, the grammar-school years and 
the high-school years. So far as the need of information is 
concerned, the periods are two rather than three. That is, 
the first two periods, or the years before the sex nature 
awakens, are the years of general preparation, while the 
adolescent years are the years when the matter is a personal 
problem. Dr. Ira S. Wile names these periods as follows: 
the age of mythology, the age of chivalry, and the age of 
civic awakening. These distinctions are excellent. As to 
the approach appropriate to each of these periods, the boy 
in the first period needs facts; in the second period, a whole- 
some development of his emotions and imagination; and in 
the third, self-control. It is generally agreed that the proper 
person to guide or discipline the boy during the first period 
is his mother, during the second, his mother and father, and 
during the third, his father. 

The information naturally to be given is as follows: dur- 
ing the first period, as to the decorous, sanitary care of 
sex organs, and, in answer to questions, as to the origins 
and renewals of life; during the second period, as to the de- 
sirability of clean thoughts and wholesome physical living, 
the development of the generative apparatus, the naturalness 
of seminal discharges, with such review as may be needed 
of previous instruction; during the third period, as to a regi- 
men of self-mastery and chastity, the chivalrous attitude 

[57] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

toward woman, and the peril of the sexual plagues, with 
special instructions for marriage. 

The Boy Before Eight 

The boy before eight needs two items of instruction: first, 
as to his personal toilet, and, second, as to the origins and 
renewal of life. 

Parents should be satisfied very early that the child's pri- 
vate parts are in a normal condition. Tightness of the foreskin 
is an indication for circumcision, an operation so harmless 
that many parents and some entire races always have it 
performed soon after birth. The result is to keep the organ 
clean and unirritated, to lessen the temptation to self- 
handling, to reduce later the frequency of seminal losses and 
to temper the sensual nature. 

The child should be shown early how to retract the fore- 
skin and cleanse the parts at the bath and told that they 
should not be handled for any other purpose. All children 
should, for reasons of health and comfort, sleep alone ; also 
that they may not learn to meddle with each other. They 
should be told to treat with scorn and fury any one who 
suggests such an act. If a child eats simple and non-stimu- 
lating food, wears loose clothing and is normal and clean, 
this habit should not become troublesome during this period. 
Should it have appeared because of any neglect by the par- 
ents, it can usually be cured after some of the information 
suggested below has been given and the boy has been en- 
couraged to sleep with his hands outside the bedclothes. 

Little children need some suggestions about modesty. It 
is well to explain that some parts of the body are not ex- 
hibited because they are like the house drains, not shameful 
but unsightly, or occasion may be taken to show how men's 
clothing among savages was originally intended chiefly to 
protect these sensitive and important parts from injury, and 

[58] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

so it has grown to be *'our custom" to keep them out of 
sight. The child may also be told that whatever the parents 
may tell him about those organs is rather in the nature of a 
secret between themselves and him, here again not because 
the subject is shameful, as it is not, but just as we do not 
tell our neighbors about our acts of toilet, our prayers or 
our family affairs. Some children cannot keep any kind of 
secret, but the harm they can do by repeating what their 
parents tell them properly about these matters need not be 
exaggerated. 

Some explanation of the origins and renewal of life should 
be made to all children, at least before they begin to go to 
school. The occasion would better be in answer to some in- 
evitable question, stimulated perhaps by observation in the 
farmyard or in the human family life, or by some attempt 
at revelation by a playmate. The very best of all oppor- 
tunities that comes, apart from the child's own suggestion, 
is when a new baby is expected in the home or neighborhood. 
The evening is a good time, when the light is shaded and the 
child is in the mother's lap, too sleepy to discuss the matter, 
but in the mood of content and gratitude. 

As to the parents' manner in telling this story, one or two 
reassuring things may be said. Do not be self-conscious. 
'Tn the experience of childhood," as Dr. Wile reminds us, 
"all acts have equal rank." We think his questions serious 
when they are only innocent. He may even already have 
shocked us by the use of some vulgar word or phrase, but 
it has been only through ignorance or bravado. Our own 
manner should be matter-of-fact, as if what we are to tell is 
not esoteric or unusual to grown-ups, earnest but not flip- 
pant, and, above all, honest, since we cannot exact honesty 
from him in all realms unless we grant it to him in this one. 
We should be sure he is attentive, so that he really gets what 
we are giving him, that he is satisfied, so that he will remem- 

159] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

ber, and that we keep his confidence, so that we may resume 
the subject when necessary. We may think it worth while 
to question him some days later, to be sure he has grasped 
what we were saying, and to continue to do this after he has 
made any new acquaintances whom we do not know very i 
much about. The mother may often wisely postpone an 
answer to a specific inquiry to some more propitious time, 
or until she is better prepared to answer it, so long as she 
keeps her appointment. But the parent who postpones the 
questions of his child for an indefinite period, promising that 
later ''if he will come to him he will answer," will find that 
the child will never come back. He will get his information 
another way. 

It helps bind the family together in this intimate matter 
if, when a point of difficulty arises, she says confidently, 
''Father will know," and arranges that he shall give the 
answer. 

There are two questions which a young child might ask, 
and probably will, during these early years. 

Motherhood 

One is this: "Where did I come from?" or "How are 
babies born?" or some other query which leads to the 
mother's part in the renewal of life. 

We may suppose that by this time most parents are agreed 
that "the stork story" and "the doctor story" are unneces- 
sary. Even if an allegory is desirable during the first five 
years, one much more beautiful and fitting may be drawn 
from the nest or the cradle than from the bird. Neither, 
according to the author's conviction, is it necessary to make 
the long and devious explanation by way of the plant and 
animal world. I am sure we do it more because we are shy 
than because the method is helpful. In some ways, it seems 
more important to teach the difference rather than the sim- 

[60] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

ilarity between man and animals, for there will come a time 
when we shall want the boy to know that with animals a 
normal sex life is an instinct, but with men it is an achieve- 
ment. We do not wish to encourage the idea that they are 
to act like the animals. Yet for the present, the "farmyard 
method" and the ''flower-garden method" are useful as 
supports for the human story. True though it is that "all life 
comes from the &gg'' how much more simple it is to teach 
at once that all human life comes from parents. And why not 
tell little children immediately that mothers are the life-hearers, 
and that the little child himself was carried in a nest in his 
mother's body close under her heart and was born into tlie 
world, as all little ones are, through the gates of birth? Soon 
after the mother has given this fact, the father ought to take 
the child into his arms and tell the boy how long it was and 
how hard and how perilous for the dear mother, and that he 
owes her his best love always, since his life in this beautiful 
world was given by hers and at the risk of hers. After this, 
the universality of birth in the animal world may be instanced 
as it comes to the child's observation in the dog, the cat and 
the rabbit. Yet there are differences which need always to 
be strongly held in calling attention to these analogies: the 
human life is immeasurably above that of any of the animals ; 
human parents love before they mate, and they care for their 
children throughout their hfetime as none of the animals do. 
Analogies from the plant world are not very direct or clear. 
It is quite possible for a child to absorb a great many botan- 
ical and other biological facts, and not apply them to himself 
until it is too late. 

Fatherhood 

The other question which the young child may ask is as to 

the father's part in reproduction. It may be stimulated by 

observation of his pets or other animals. It may merely be 

an inquiry as to the purpose of his own sex organs, of which 

[6i] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

he has been urged to take care. It is often asked by the 
child when taking a bath. 

Whether the question is really asked or not, the writer 
believes that the truth should be told very early. It is much 
better to tell it when the child is innocent and the information 
is received by the child absolutely without any sex-conscious- 
ness. It is much easier to tell it when the parent is not self- 
conscious. There is something illogical in ''playing up" moth- 
erhood and entirely ignoring fatherhood, which is the vocation 
for which this child is being prepared. We do not use the 
strongest motive for the protection of the organs of genera- 
tion when we refram knowledge of their use. True, the 
young child may partly forget what we tell him now, but it 
will be easier later to remind him than to try to reveal it 
de novo. Knowledge of the sex-dif¥erences early may pre- 
vent some embarrassing situations which otherwise are quite 
inevitable. 

Since it has been found that the majority of boys by the 
age of ten have some idea, usually coarsened and garbled, 
of the father's share in reproduction, it is the writer's con- 
viction that by that time, at least, each boy should be in- 
formed by his own father in what a father's part in the 
renewal of life consists. 

The essential thing to tell is that as the mother is the life- 
bearer, so the father is the Ufe-giver. The child may be in- 
formed that, if he takes good care of himself and grows up 
strong and pure, som.e day he will have within his body, 
in the region already indicated, seeds of life. Tell him, too, that 
his outer tube, the penis as it is called, must carry those seeds 
of life into some mother-nest, of which he has been told, 
where, after they have been joined to tiny egg-cells of that 
mother, a little baby may come into being. The story, thus 
told, will impress any little child as a beautiful miracle-play. 
In all such explanation the scientific names of the parts may 

[62] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

be mentioned, so that the child in search for appellations 
will not cling to the vulgar ones. Here again occasional 
confirmation of fact may be noted in the neighboring birds 
and pets. 

There are a number of important advantages in the ap- 
proach thus indicated. 

It starts not, as such teaching usually does, from the indi- 
vidual—his wants, his pleasures, his introspections — but from 
the family, the first social unit, the greatest human fact, to 
which we should focus attention throughout, and for which 
we should demand early and lifelong loyalty. 

It lays the foundation of self-control in sufficient motives 
and correct ideas. A child gets no other conception of the 
use of the sex organs from his companions or his other asso- 
ciations on the street than that it is primarily for personal 
and sensual pleasure. From his father should come the 
thought that it is chiefly intended as the instrument for hand- 
ing down the life of the family and for his own virile devel- 
opment as a future man in that family. 

It satisfies and allays normal curiosity and thus sets the 
child free to continue to be childlike, and not inquisitive, 
furtive or baffled. This method would seem to meet the ob- 
jections of Miinsterberg, who is about the only opponent of 
sex education. He thinks such knowledge to be hygienically 
advantageous but emotionally upsetting to a boy. Give it 
early enough, when it is first wanted, and it furnishes the 
hygienic protection without the emotional disturbance. 

How sound and satisfying was the testimony of the boy 
who, after talking these matters over with his chums, and 
becoming disgusted with the evident subterfuges which had 
been retailed to them by their parents, exclaimed: "Let's go 
and ask my mother. She always tells the truth!" 



[63] 



CHAPTER VII 
RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

The Child's Nurture 
What shall we teach the little child about religion? Re- 
membering that he is perfectly credulous, but also that he is 
of limited capacity, naturally we should teach him only what 
he is ready for. Instead of volunteering information upon 
all sorts of religious topics, our conversation should be 
chiefly confined to those things in which he shows a ready 
interest; and our religious repHes should be almost entirely 
to questions that he raises himself. 

Teaching About God 

Little children will believe about God whatever we tell 
them, because they always believe what they are told; and 
in this respect there is, as Professor Coe tells us, "no differ- 
ence discernible between belief in God, the Sand Man or the 
Black Man." 

President Hall thinks that "the child's conception of God 
should not be personal or too familiar at first, but that He 
should appear distant and vague, inspiring awe and reverence 
far more than love; in a word, as the God of nature, rather 
than as devoted to lovable ministrations to the child's individ- 
ual wants. The latter should be taught to be a faithful serv- 
ant rather than as a favorite of God." This is not quite the 
view of God which is usually given first to children by their 
parents. The peril of such a conception is that God, being 
removed from humanity both by distance and by nature, be- 
comes to the child a sort of religious watchman. Harry E. 
Bartow tells how his little boy once came in, saying: "I was 

[64] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

playing in the yard, and God looked down on me, and I said, 
'I don't like you to look at me, God.' " Mr. Bartow there- 
fore proceeded to dwell much upon God's love and to tell 
him that God watched to see how good and happy he was. 
"That God we told him about did not dislike naughty boys; 
He loved all boys, but was happier when boys were good." 

Most parents teach about God as Jesus did, as our Father, 
perhaps unconsciously expecting that this thought will be 
interpreted by human parenthood. It may not be wholly 
sentiment which causes us to approve the following anecdote, 
which illustrates how the child reads his social experience 
with his parents into his thought of God. The story is told 
by Coe. ''Mamma," said a small boy, *'do you know what 
I'm going to do the first thing when I get to heaven? I'm 
going to run up to the heavenly Father and give Him a kiss!" 

So near is the child to the animal world that we cannot 
reach to the depth of his nature unless we touch the animal 
and passional as well as the spiritual. The child must be 
made manly before he can become godlike. In no better 
way does the mother reveal the love of God than by her 
anxiety so to satisfy the child's physical needs as to reveal 
her own love to him. The sense of perpetual comfort and 
care not only makes the child feel at home in his world, but 
makes him convinced that God is a person there. The shar- 
ing of physical life has in it, as Dr. Coe suggests, the sacred- 
ness of incarnation. The essential method of education is 
the sharing of Hfe between a higher and a lower person, 
whereby the principle of incarnation is carried forward in 
each new generation. 

This care of the body of the child has another religious 
value, too, in that protecting the child as a good animal Is 
the wholesomest way to prepare him to become a good 
Christian. 

But even this thought of the Fatherhood of God does not 

[65] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

entirely satisfy the child, because it does not seem to fill the 
spaces of the universe with his presence. There is still much 
that is dark and mysterious which the child cannot explain. 
We may therefore agree with President Hall, that anything 
that stimulates the child's thoughts about the unseen world, 
which makes him believe that nature is alive and friendly, is 
truly religious teaching. Whatever fosters the sense of 
being at home in the universe, or in any way teaches the 
sense of the oneness of it, is leading toward the desired 
end. 

The first question which suggests to the mother the neces- 
sity of telling the child about God is usually a question of 
cause. Dr. George E. Dawson cites a child, probably his 
own, who began wdth his fourth year and seemed always to 
be trying to find out where things come from originally and 
who keeps the world a-going. ^'Who makes the birds?" 
"Who made the very first bird?" "Who fixed their wings 
so they can fly?" "Who takes care of the birds and rabbits 
in the winter, when the snow is on the ground?" "Who 
makes the grass grow?" "Who makes the trees?" "Who 
makes them shed their leaves and get them back again?" 
"Who made the sand and rocks in Forest Park?" "Who 
made the Connecticut River?" "Who keeps it from running 
dry?" "Who makes it thunder?" Who put the moon in 
the sky?" "W^ho made the whole world?" "Who made peo- 
pie?" "Who made me?" "Does God make everything?" 
"Who made God?" "Was God already made?" "Is God 
everywhere?" Such were the questions asked again and 
again, with all sorts of comments in reply to the answers that 
were given. The question of what is the origin of things 
was seldom or never asked. It w^as always who; and when the 
personal cause the child was seeking was named "God" in 
connection with numerous objects he finally generalized by 
asking if God makes everything. Earl Barnes cites a four- 

[66] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

year-old girl who asked more definite questions. "What 
does God eat? Is it chopped grass? Doesn't God have any 
dinner? Did Robinson Crusoe live before God? Who was 
before God? Is rain God's tears running out of the sky? 
How did God put the moon in the sky?" 

Mrs. Edith Read Mumford says: 

*'The romance of fairies, gnomes and sprites is, to my mind, 
full of spiritual truth. Every flower, every leaf, every object 
around us, has a spirit of its own; is fraught with mystery. 
They are more than material objects; they are, as it were, 
thoughts of the Creative Power clothed in matter. Can the 
Spirit of love, of power, of beauty, of humor, embodied In 
the world, be more fitly expressed for the child than in this 
undergrowth, as it were, of tiny creatures, haunting the night, 
when the 'humans' are asleep; this world of moral, immoral 
and non-moral fairy beings?" 

Because of the vividness with which children clothe inani- 
mate things with life we must be cautious about telling chil- 
dren things which they may magnify into terrorizing objects. 
It is cruel to tell children stories about "The Bad Man," 
*The Big Bear that will catch you," etc. Bolton suggests 
that even the good fairies and Santa Claus should never be 
represented as dwelling too near. Let them be the "good 
men away off." A child may suffer great mental agony if 
he thinks that even dear old Santa Claus lives in the 
kitchen chimney. 

In teaching little children about God, Jesus must be left 
for the present in their thought, no matter what be the 
theological beliefs of the parents, rather, as Horace Bushnell 
said, "as the good Carpenter saving the world" than as Deity. 
Any other idea is likely to be grotesque. Their attitude 
toward him should be that of loyalty. The thought: "You 
must not do this because father and mother would not like 
■it" may be extended to include Jesus. They should feel to 

[67] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

him a similar allegiance, admiration and affection, with some- 
thing of hero-worship added. To develop such loyalty in 
childhood is to do the greatest thing that can be done for 
the shaping of character. 

Teaching About Duty 

The child's conception of duty is always concrete; it always 
takes the form of some definite thing to be done or to be 
left undone nozv. 

It consists therefore almost entirely in the forming of cor- 
rect habits of doing the customary things that are to be done 
and of inhibiting the things that are customarily not to be 
done. 

Habit is not morality, but habits are the root of morality. 
''However eager you may be that your child should con- 
scientiously press toward the right," says G. Spiller; ''however, 
convinced you may be of the small value of mere good habits, 
yet you can only reasonably hope for conscious love of the 
right when good habits have paved the way. Your whole 
hope of making children love the right hfe depends entirely 
on the pre-supposition that the desire to be good does not 
encounter a mob of bad habits. It depends also upon your 
continued watchfulness in this direction, never allowing 
anarchy to enter into your children's souls." And Dr. Arthur 
Holmes puts it even more concretely when he says: "The 
problem of character-making with the child from one to 
twelve years of age resolves itself into making good habits 
by having the child do things'' 

Let there be regularity in meals, going to bed, getting up, 
etc. Let there be order in picking up things and putting 
them away after playing. A good suggestion for this is a 
big box, with a cover or a low shelf, where the baby may pile 
things up. A child should be taught early to restrain certain 
impulses, like crying and anger, the natural processes of 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

nature, through regularity, and at the same time gradually 
learn to wait for a few minutes for something he wants. 
Especially must the habit of silence at proper times be culti- 
vated in a little child, not only that he may not disturb others, 
but that he may not miss some experience or opportunity 
to learn himself. 

Habit-forming 

First of all the good habits of life in importance is abso- 
lute, unquestioning obedience to father, mother, nurse, 
teacher or law. When the child reaches for articles on the 
table and the parent says, "No, no," that should be as final 
as the later recognition of one of the laws of nature. We 
shall never succeed in making of the child a moral person if 
he does not realize early that there are higher laws than the 
law of his will. The higher law is the law of absolute right, of 
which, throughout childhood, the parent is herself trying to 
be the embodiment. With very young children no reason 
need be given for our commands. 'Tt is enough to them," 
says Mrs. Cradock, "that 'mother or nurse says so.' Grad- 
ually, as they learn that what mother or nurse says is always 
right, they will learn to co-operate in this matter of obedi- 
ence. This is, indeed, what we have to aim at. BHnd, un- 
reasoning obedience must come first; but unless it leads the 
children to govern themselves, it is not worth much." The 
child has such good will that we need neither persuade nor 
force him to obey, but only "clear-sightedly remove the 
Various mioral and physical obstructions which He in the way 
of his obedience, with the confident expectation that his 
latent instinct will develop spontaneously in the new and 
favorable conditions." 

As the child grows older, the number of conscious motives 
to obedience increases. Impulse is strengthened by loyal 
allegiance and the experience of prudence by the experience 
of joy in duty. A mother, who was herself a well-known 

[69] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

writer for children, has recorded in some notes on her chil- 
dren that when one of her httle girls had declined to accede 
to her wish she used to say to her: "Oh, yes; I think when 
you have remembered how pleasant it is to oblige others you 
will do it." "I will think about it, mamma," the child would 
reply, laughing, and then go and hide her head behind a sofa 
pillow which she called her **thinking-corner." In half a 
minute she would come out and say: "Oh, yes, mamma; I 
have thought about it, and I will do it." This strikes me as 
an admirable combination of regulative suggestion with the 
consciousness of using her own will, which yet maintained 
the needed measure of guidance and loyalty. 

Though we do not undergo the waste of time to give. 
reasons, we must, of course, be reasonable ourselves. Many 
of the children's offenses are due to the unreasonableness of 
their parents. Some mothers are so secure in their own in- 
fallibility that they mistake what they hear from "the con- 
volutions of a smooth-lipped shell" for the thunders of the 
everlasting sea. To watch a woman with an Alice-in-Won- 
derland type of mind assume the sceptre of a pope with the 
insensibility of a goldfish is to observe an instance of divine 
sovereignty for which there is no cure and from which there 
is no appeal. Our very authority tempts us to a lust for 
power and for an exhibition of our power over our children. 
This lust for power itself brings blindness and causes us often 
to do our children pitiable injustice. 

Among the habits suitable to little children none is more 
important than that of self-directed play. It is possible at 
a very early period to begin training the child to play by 
himself for gradually lengthening periods. It is also pos- 
sible within the earliest years for him to acquire the habits 
of joy in little things and in home-made playthings, and 
increasingly to take charge of his own time and his own 
amusement. 

[70] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

Some one may say that all this tends to make the child 
an automaton. He does good now as a matter of routine, 
but this does not mean that we may predict that he will do 
good in the future. Now, this is exactly what the vitality 
of habit does accomplish. "Children/* says W. B. Drum- 
mond, "are creatures of habit in nothing more than this! 
that a particular line of conduct which they once pursue, for 
any reason whatever, becomes a source of childish preference 
— the germ of a bias toward certain lines of action, the pos- 
sible foundation of a scheme of moral values." The child 
is pre-eminently a traditionalist. When he has once or twice 
conformed, he desires thereafter always to conform. Ernest 
Abbott cites a mother who came into the nursery one Sunday 
afternoon and found her little boy studying. She was sur- 
prised, and said: "We try to keep Sunday dijfferent from 
other days. After this we shall understand that you are not 
to study on Sunday." A little more than two weeks later 
the boy came home from school and said, "Sammy is a funny 
boy." Sammy was a schoolmate. "What has he done?" in- 
quired Paul's mother. "Why, Sammy gets his lessons on 
Sunday." Two Sundays had sufficed for the establishment 
of a new purpose in a relation so complete that a violation of 
it by another had seemed to him grotesque. 

Perhaps the child outgrows this automatic relation to 
righteousness sometimes earlier than Vv^e think, owing to his 
intense personifying of things; his sense of loyalty to right 
may be as early and as powerful as that of loyalty to persons. 
Mrs. Dorothy Canfield Fisher says: "I know a child not yet 
quite three, who, by the maddeningly persistent interroga- 
tions characteristic of his age, has succeeded in extracting 
from a pair of gardening elders an explanation of the differ- 
ence between weeds and flowers, and who has been so struck 
with this information that he has, entirely of his own volition, 
unlisted himself in the army of natural-born reformers. 

171] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

With the personal note of very little children, who find it 
impossible to think in terms at all abstract, he has con- 
structed in his baby mind an exciting drama in the garden, 
unfolding itself before his eyes — a drama in which he acts, 
by virtue of his comparatively huge size and giant strength, 
the generous role of dens ex muchina, constantly rescuing 
beauty beset by her foes. He throws himself upon a weed, 
uproots it and casts it away with the righteously indignant 
exclamation: 'Horrid old weed! Stop eating the flowers' 



dinner, 



> }) 



Our children do not entirely satisfy us. They develop, 
even before they enter school, many bad habits. What shall 
we do about these bad habits? The first thing to try is to 
ignore them entirely. Take, for example, the impulse to- 
ward "bad language." The child constantly picks up ex- 
pressions absolutely meaningless to him, some of which are 
shocking to us who are older. "If," says Irving King, "one 
of these expressions is ignored by his elders or playmates, it 
never comes to the focus of attention and probably is per- 
manently dropped, A three-year-old boy in a refined family 
was once trying to tell his mother and sisters about som.e- 
thing, but they, being busy, did not pay attention to him 
and several times asked him to repeat his story. Finally, 

he cried out impatiently: 'Go to ! Do you hear that?' 

He had found the expression no one knew where, and as no 
one paid the least attention to it, he never said it again. If 
he had been scolded 'for using such naughty words,* he 
would probably have been out with it again at the next 
appropriate moment." If this does not work, we may place 
the child in an environment where, by unconscious imitation, 
he will acquire correct habits and will forget the old ones. 
This is Dr. Holmes' method of playing an instinct against a 
habit. The instinct of imitation conquers the habit of slang 
dialect and profanity. 

[72] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

Habits of Reverence 

The importance of the habit of courtesy of demeanor lies 
in the fact that courtesy is a form of reverence. ''Courtesy," 
as Dr. Hodges tells us, ''expresses our recognition of the 
presence of others, and is, at its highest, the expression of 
the presence of God." 

Out of this very authority of ours and out of this courtesy 
which we inculcate in the children comes that distinct relation 
to the Divine which we know as reverence. By the absolute- 
ness of our authority the will of the child is saved from ca- 
price and feels the power of steadiness. "Such authority," 
says Dr. Hall, "excites a unique, unfathomable sense of rev- 
erence, which brings the capacity for will culture — that 
strongest and soundest of all moral motives." It is at first felt 
only towvard persons, but it soon becom.es possible to trans- 
fer that reverence tov/ard the person of God. 

"Children," says Mrs. Mumford, "are not ready for prayer 
at any fixed period in their lives. In some the instinct of 
affection and gratitude is late in developing. If they do not 
greatly love the father whom they have seen, how can they 
love a Father whom they have not seen? And if they do 
not love, are they ready to pray? The first condition of all 
religion is merging of self-love into other love. Love goes 
before faith. Not to love is not to believe, for it is love 
which makes us feel that the object is worthy of our faith. 
Bit by bit, in the case of such children, we need to develop 
the loving side of their nature and watch for our opportunity 
to tell them of God. Some children can truly pray before 
they are three ; others not till much later. But the earlier 
the better, if the prayer is real. Until they can pray them- 
selves we must let them see that we pray for them. But 
when they begin to be capable of unselfish love toward those 
around them, begin to grow in their power of imagination— 
on some specially glad day, when we are tucking them up at 

[73] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

night, we can remind them of all the glad things in their 
lives — recall the joys of that day, the beautiful sunshine, the 
flowers in the garden, the romp with Father, the kisses and 
the hugs at bedtime, till the little one glows with conscious 
joy! Then we can ask: 'Who gives you all this joy? Who 
makes Father and Mother love you? Who makes you love 
them — the loving that makes you so glad?' We can tell 
them it is God who gives all good things. Would they like 
to thank God? If the children respond, and they will re- 
spond if we have chosen the right moment, with their eyes 
shut and hands reverently folded, we let them say their first 
spontaneous prayer: 'Thank you for making me happy; 
please make everybody happy,' is one such first prayer. The 
form of prayer may depend upon the child and our sugges- 
tions to the child; but we must see that it is real." 

Reverence in Prayer 

The importance of reverent attitudes is that they readily 
become to the child the physical expression of the moral 
feeling. "The child's first ideas of prayer," Froebel said, 
"come to him when an infant by the mother's kneeling beside 
his crib in silent prayer; her bowed head and kneeling body 
tell of submission to and reverence for a power greater than 
herself; her tone of voice when she speaks of sacred things is 
far more effectual with the little Hstener than the words she 
says." 

Mrs. Cradock tells of a man who once said to her: 'T do 
not remember anything my mother said to me about my 
behavior at prayers, but what did impress me and what I can 
never forget is her own intense reverence as she knelt beside 
me when I said my childish prayers. That impressed me, 
though her words are all forgotten." 

It hardly needs to be said that kneeling in a cold room 
is not sacred and that the necessary haste to get into bed 

[74] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

destroys any sense of reverence. Many young children love 
to say their prayers on what William Canton's "W. V." 
called mother's "blessed lap of heaven." Why should a 
child pray at his mother's knee? Is there any reason ex- 
cept that it is a pretty sight? Mother is not God. She, too, 
needs to pray. Is it not better for mother and child to kneel 
side by side? 

The child should be alone v^^ith his mother when he says 
his prayers. Charming as is the sight of a kneeling baby, it 
is an outrage to the spirit of reverence to bring him, as some 
careless parents do, into the parlor in the presence of guests 
to say his bedtime petitions, or to allow him to be visited or 
disturbed while he is repeating them. I am sure we must 
agree with Dr. Henry Woodward Hurlbert, that "Any parent 
who, for the amusement of a dinner party or a social circle, 
will thus draw aside the curtain of the Holy of Holies, into 
which she may have been permitted to enter with her child 
into God's very presence, seems ill-fitted to be intrusted with 
a child. If ever a confessional should be considered sacredly 
confidential, it is that at a mother's knee. Let us plead with 
people to shut the doors of their lips on such a theme and to 
discourage in every way we know how the common modern 
practice. No sign of the shallowness of much of our more 
recent home life is more saddening. What can you expect 
of the religious life of a child who must, perforce, sit and 
hear some slip of his tongue, or some crude pertness, or 
some extravaganza of language, or even shrewd and bright 
utterance in prayer, made the whimsical entertainment of a 
company, or who hears the prayers of other children thus 
bandied about?" 

The physical relaxation of bedtime is an appropriate time 
for prayers, but even more vital to the spirit of the child is 
that he should open the day with a sense of gratitude and 
an active spirit of devotion. Even the little child should also 

[75] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

be taught that he may say his prayers anywhere, and that 
kneehng is not essential to talking with his heavenly Father. 

We have an opportunity to develop the spirit of reverence 
by the child's contact with the world in which he lives. To 
bring a little one into a great church, perhaps a cathedral, 
either during the beautiful service or when the sanctuary is 
empty, and teaching him to step softly, to catch the wonder of 
the height, the depth or the dimensions and to look up with 
reverence toward the Holy Place, is to give the child an 
emotional impression that will be far-reaching. Even more 
profound is the child's reaction toward darkness and star- 
Hght, Some children who were afraid to stay in bed alone 
have been entirely reassured by being taken to the window 
and shown the hosts of heaven, which seemed to them Hke 
guardian spirits. So tremendous is the impression of the 
multitude of stars upon children that one child, at least, 
acknowledged, even in womanhood, that she was scarcely 
able then to endure to look upon their splendor. Courtesy, 
that form of reverence which works toward inferior beings, 
may be extended to the world of animals and plants; and the 
tender-hearted protection of the tiny world of living things 
has close relation to a reverential religious life. 

Father Sill thinks that there should be a special prayer 
place in the house, an "oratory" if possible, if not, a corner, 
as an aid to devotion. 

Attention in Prayer 
This is a much-neglected element of reverence. It may 
be called its intellectual side. "It may seem," says Mrs. 
Cradock, "at first sight strange to class it with such things 
as reverence or truthfulness. But it is a habit which so 
closely affects our whole life, spiritual, mental and physical, 
that the importance of it can hardly be exaggerated. How 
can we pray, in after Hfe, with any real force or reality if we 

[76] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

cannot 'attend* for five minutes together? How can we 
relate accurately anything we have heard if we have only half 
'attended' to what was said? How much shall we miss of the 
beauty and joy of life if we only look at noble pictures or 
read great poems with wandering attention? We might go 
into almost any domain of life and see what a hampering 
effect want of attention has and how much good work it 
cripples. A schoolmaster said to a boy one day in class: 
'If you don't attend better to what you are doing, you will 
find that when you are a man you can't pray when you want 
to; you won't be able to attend then/ Years afterward the 
boy met a school friend and said: 'Do you remember what 
so and so (naming his old master) said about my not attend- 
ing? Well, it has come quite true. I find I simply can't 
attend when I try to pray.' " 

Dr. Henry Hurlbert reminds us: "Our word 'thank' comes 
from the same Aryan root as does the word 'think.' A 
think-ful heart is a thank-ful heart. Let even a very little 
child be made thankful about God's goodness, and he will 
desire to thank Him." 

In a charming book for children, called "The Little Book 
of Courtesie," Katharine Tynan Hinkson has put quaintly the 
message which we have to give our children: "The wise Child, 
when he has awakened from sleep and risen and clad himself, 
will remember Him who kept him all the night in peace 
and safety, and, kneeling down, with his hands and his heart 
lifted to Heaven, he will praise and thank that Kind Maker 
and Preserver. He will be so in unison with all Creation, 
for the Birds sing, the Flowers lift their faces, the whole 
world, refreshed, sends up grateful incense toward the good 
God. Even in the Wintertime, if the child be housed in 
Town rather than in the fresh and pleasant Country, he will 
hear the Sparrows saying their prayers. Be quite sure that in 
the great chorus of praise which all creation is sending up 

l77] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

to the Throne of God that kind and fatherly God would miss 
the voice of one little Child who had forgotten Him. It 
would be the greatest Discourtesy if while he prayed a 
Child were to think of other things — of his Breakfast, or his 
Games, or a Treat promised him, or any other matter what- 
soever. If one was talking to some one very dear, Father 
or Mother or favorite Friend, he would not be thinking of 
other things and not of them. So the good Child will say 
his Prayers, remembering to Whom he speaks; and after- 
wards he will go to his daily Tasks and Pleasures with a sense 
of Blessing." 

How TO Teach a Child to Pray 
''When Margery was about two," says the mother 
in a book by Susan Chenery, "I taught her to say a 
little prayer, and had her repeat it every night on 
going to bed. 'God bless Margery,' — that was all at 
first; but I showed her how to kneel, and she understood 
that the prayer was always to come before lying down for 
the night. Of course, the name of God meant nothing to 
her, and the three words together nothing at all. My only 
idea was to have her begin to pray so early that it would be 
second nature to her to say her evening prayer, and, indeed, 
that she should not be able to recall the time when she did 
not say it. As she grew older I suggested 'God bless papa. 
God bless mamma. God bless Frank. God bless Margery,' 
and this was the form for some time, but was altered to 
admit others from time to time, and often stretches out now 
into a long list of friends and relatives. 

"Not for a long time did I try to teach her anything about 
God; but it was probably in answer to some questions of 
hers that I explained, when she was old enough to be inter- 
ested, that God loves us, that He is the Father of all the 
people in the world, that He wants everyone to do what is 

[78] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

right, that He sees everything that happens, that He is glad 
when we do right and sorry when we do wrong, and that He 
has a home where He takes His children when they are 
through with this world.'* 

One mother, cited by Kate Upson Clark, met a special 
problem in teaching her child to frame a prayer of his own. 
She met it wisely, as follows: "I found it impossible, when 
my eldest child became old enough to make up a prayer for 
himself, to induce him to do it. He was too shy and too 
reserved to do it. He could not seem to find the words. I 
meditated upon the matter, and prayed for light upon it. At 
last I saw that, as the most effective instruction is by means 
of the object lesson, it was my duty to offer such a prayer as 
I thought he ought to, until he should learn to do it for 
himself. Therefore, instead of offering a mere formal and 
conventional prayer, as I had been used to, I began to offer 
such a prayer as I thought he would want to, using expres- 
sions like, 'when I grow up,' and 'help me to obey my father 
and mother and teachers,' just as if he were talking himself. 
The prayer is always very short and plain. As the younger 
children became old enough to understand, I adopted the 
same custom with them. 

'That they enjoyed this little prayer, so simple and so 
short that I am almost ashamed to mention it, is proved by 
the fact that they often say, 'Don't forget your little prayer, 
mamma'; and if I am going out to dinner, or to any enter- 
tainment, they say, 'Why, mamma, you can't say your little 
prayer if you go away and don't get back until we have 
gone to sleep.' " 

This practice is certainly a beautiful one, and if the mother 
does not always succeed in making her petitions childlike 
and the little one falls asleep, it will in later days be a sacred 
memory that she used to fall asleep amid her mother's 
prayers. 

[79] ^'' , 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

It IS a misfortune to allow children to think that petition 
must be the chief element in prayer. If they think that, they 
are bound to become selfish. The chief element in a true 
prayer is gratitude. A spirit of thankfulness, appreciation 
for daily blessings, is easily inculcated by taking every 
good gift as direct from the Father's hand and mentioning 
it as such to the child. Susan Chenery cites her observation 
of the mother in her story, as follows : 

*T not infrequently heard her say when the children were 
near: T thank God for this beautiful day.' T thank God for 
this lovely rain.' 'I thank God that papa is all right again.* 
'I thank God that He sent you to me, my darling child.* 'I 
thank God that no bones were broken in that fall.' I told 
Helen one day that she reminded me of the 'Lord save us' of 
some of our humbler fellow Christians!" 

'' 'I think I learned it from them,' she answered, a twinkle 
rippling over her face. 1 say it in my heart every time my 
feet are kept from falling, but I say it aloud when the chil- 
dren are near, that they may know my dependence upon 
God.' " 

The mother who keeps the thought of gratitude continually 
before her children will soon see what an efifect it has upon 
their characters in making them happy and more content. 
Here comes the close relation between hymns and prayer, 
since a hymn is chiefly a song of gratitude. 

From the little kindergarten song, "Father, we thank 
thee," to the longer hymns in the church hymnals, there are 
many songs and hymns which have a powerful influence in 
directing the child's thought to its Maker and instilling the 
habit of praise and thankfulness. 

One mother always begins the day with a hymn of praise. 
The children are awakened by it, and each joins in as he 
hears it until all are singing happily. 

When the child is old enough to attend church, special 

[80] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

care should be taken to instruct him as to the meaning of 
public worship. At the first, attendance upon such services 
should be a special reward of merit at home and for good 
behavior at church. But in early years the impressive morn- 
ing worship will have the most potent effect on the child's 
whole life. On entering the church, as the organ plays 
devotionally, the child should be taught to bow the head in 
worship. At that moment he may be instructed to whisper 
a little prayer which he has learned at home for the purpose. 
I suggest this : 

Dear Father, here I am in Thy house, to thank Thee for Thy 
goodness to me and to all Thy people. Help me as I sing and 
listen with those who love Thee. Amen. 

If there is an opportunity to kneel or bow before going 
out, the child may say: 

Dear Father, I am going away now from Thy house out 
into the world. Help me not to forget Thee, and to be always 
thankful. Amen. 

So Strong is the imitativeness of little children that it is 
often extraordinarily difficult to determine, even in the case 
of the child of six or seven, how far his religion has, even at 
that age, become directly personal or whether God is not 
often a being to whom access is only possible through some 
one else. Susan Chenery gives an illustration in which we 
seem to watch the growth of the child into a personal con- 
ception of God. 

"Margery had been repeating a prayer for a good many 
months before she realized the privileges of prayer. One 
night she said to me as I tucked her up for the night, 
*Mamma, what do people do when they want things?* Not 
quite understanding her, I yet answered, 'If it is something 
to buy, and they have money and know it is right to buy 
it, why, they go and get it.' *But if it isn't to buy with money, 

[8i] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

and they don't know how to get it?' T'U tell you what I do, 
Margery; I ask God to let me have it if it is good for me, but 
that I don't want it if it isn't.' 'How do you ask Him?' 'I 
say, ''Oh, God, if it is best, help me to get this thing, and 
don't let me have it if it isn't good for me." ' 'Oh, yes, 
now I know. If I whisper it, can He hear?' *Yes, indeed, 
or if you just think it. He will know all about it.' She told 
me afterward what it was she wanted, and that she had asked 
for it." 

A second-hand relation to religion may be due to the 
habit of always encouraging children to say their prayers 
at their mother's knee. It may be that entire solitude some- 
times will help counteract the tendency of letting the mother 
be always mediator between the child and God. 

The child who has been taught that the existence of a 
personal God is a sure conviction has a personal reHgious 
experience which is both a comfort and strength. Mrs. 
Mumford cites a boy named Stephen, who was about four 
years old and who was prone to fits of rudeness and anger. 
One day there had been a particularly sad exhibition of 
temper and his mother, thinking he might get help from 
prayer — she had tried with all her might to teach him self- 
control, but failure was frequent — added, when he had fin- 
ished his prayers at night, that she wanted to say a few words 
to God for him. "Don't tell Him about today," urged the 
poor little lad, his conscience pricking him at once, but when 
his mother told him that He knew without being told, 
and was so sorry, and wanted to help. "If He knows," 
he added, "I am glad. Do ask Him to help me; I can't 
manage." 

A sense of the personal presence of God is not only a 
comfort, but a support. The child who feels it can be trusted 
anywhere. "He has within him," says Dr. Hodges, "a de- 
fense against evil, and an inspiration to do good. His own, 

[82] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE' 

native, independent desire to please God. He has a talis- 
man of protection and strength which no amount of moral 
teaching can give him. He has been given a spiritual en- 
dowment which will make him rich as long as he lives." 

Perhaps the prayer most commonly taught to little chil- 
dren is the one that begins *'Now I lay me." This has been 
objected to by many parents because of its entire selfishness 
and its prominent suggestion of danger and death. It is no 
longer necessary that every child's prayer should include 
an anticipation of night attacks of enemies. A better render- 
ing is this: 

"Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep; 
Thy love be with me through the night, 
And bless me with the morning light." 

Mrs. Mary Duncan many years ago composed a rhyming 
prayer which is thoroughly childlike and contains many ele- 
ments of a good prayer. 

"Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me, "All this day Thy hand has led me, 
Bless Thy little lamb to-night; And I thank Thee for Thy care; 
Through the darkness be Thou Thou hast warmed me, clothed 
near me ; and fed me ; 

Keep me safe till morning light. Listen to my evening prayer ! 

"Let my sins be all forgiven; 

Bless the friends 1 love so well ; 
Take us all at last to heaven, 
Happy there with Thee to dwell." 

Dr. George Hodges gives the following petition, in which 
the suggestion of a rhyme assists the memory: "O Lord our 
Heavenly Father, lead me, guard me, help me, bless me, 
keep me, make me pure and brave and true in all I think and 
say and do!" 

Mrs. Mumford suggests two elements as appropriate to 
the content of a child's prayer. 

[83] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

'*In the first place, the words of the prayer, if words have 
to be suggested, must be in touch with the child's experience 
and feelings. 

"In the second place, such experience must be recalled, 
and the feeling of love reawakened, as a preliminary to 
prayer. Only in this way can prayer be real on the part of 
the child." 

The author has collected from various sources a small 
Treasury of Prayers for Little Children, in each of which 
Mrs. Mumford's two criteria, of suitableness of thought and 
stimulation of feeHng, seem to be regarded. 

A Treasury of Prayers 

A Morning Prayer 

Dear God. I thank Thee for the light and the food and the 
love and for all the other good things Thou hast given me. 
Please help me to be a good, kind child to-day and bless 
and (naming those he loves.) Amen. 

A Morning Prayer 

''God, guide and guard us all to-day, 
In times of work and thought and' play. 
Help us to live in ways to prove 
That we are grateful for Your love. Amen." 

— John Martin. 

A Morning Prayer 

'Tather, v/e thank Thee for the "Help us to do the things we 

night, should. 

And for the pleasant morning To be to others kind and good; 

light; In all we do in work or play, 

For rest and food and loving care. To grow more loving every day." 
And all that makes the day so fair. 

A Morning Prayer 

"Father, dear, I fain would thank "All that I today am doing 

Thee Plelp m.e, Lord, to do for Thee; 

For my long refreshing sleep May I kind and helpful be, 

And the watch that Thou didst Only good in others see, 

keep. Try to serve Thee faithfully. 

While I slumbered soft and deep, Amen." 
O'er Thy child so lovingly. 

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RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

A Morning Prayer 

"Dear God, Good Morning. I am "Today I'll have some things to 
glad do. 

To see another happy day. Oh, may I do my very best. 

I know that nothing hard or sad Help me to think of others, too, 
Will come to take my joy away. When I would rather play or 
I know that You are here with rest. 

me Oh, God, please let me have some 

The same as You were near all fun; 

night; Please love me when I work or 

And You will help me, God, to see play, 

What I should do, and what is So when night comes, and day is 
right. done, 

I'll know I've had a fine, good 
day. Amen." 

— John Martin. 
A Morning Prayer 

"For this new morning with its light, 
For rest and shelter of the night. 
For health and food, for love and friends, 
For everything thy goodness sends 
We thank thee, heavenly Father. 

"Father, we look to thee, and pray 
That thou wilt guide us through this day. 
From all wrong-doing keep us free; 
May we thy loving children be." 

A Grace at Table 

"Lord Jesus, be our Holy Guest, 
Our morning Joy, our evening Rest ; 
And with our daily bread impart 
Thy love and peace to every heart." 

A Grace at Table 

"We thank Thee for this bread and meat 
And all the good things which we eat; 
Lord, may we strong and happy be. 
And always good and true like Thee." 

— James Max on Yard. 

An Evening Prayer 

"Now I lay me down to sleep: "And dear Father, while I share 

Heavenly Father, wilt Thou keep In Thy tender love and care, 
Me and those I love all night? Help me every day to be 

For with Thee 'tis always light. An obedient child to Thee. 

Amen." 

— Henrietta R. Eliot. 

[8s] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

An Evening Prayer 
"In my work and in my play 
Thou hast kept me through the day. 
While I close my eyes in sleep, 
Tender watch above me keep. 
Loving Jesus, meek and mild, 
Let me be thine own dear child. Amen." 

An Evening Prayer 
"Father, bless Thy little child tonight; 
Wake me with the morning light. 
May I pure and holy be, 
Daily growing more like Thee. Amen." 

Example 

'"The best way for a child to learn to fear God," said the 
good and gentle Pestalozzi, "is to see and know a real 
Christian." 

As we have already seen, the prominent factor in the child's 
early religious training is a personal one. No other reli- 
gious impressions can compare with those which arise from 
constant intercourse with friends whom the child can trust 
and reverence and love. Mrs. Birney says: "The mother's 
face and voice are the first conscious objects as the infant 
soul unfolds, and she soon comes to stand in the very place 
of God to her child. All the religion of which the child is 
capable during this by no means brief stage of its develop- 
ment consists of those sentiments — gratitude, trust, de- 
pendence, love, etc., now felt only for her — which are later 
directed toward God. The less these are now cultivated 
toward the mother, who is now their only fitting, if not their 
only possible object, the more feebly they will later be felt 
toward God. This, too, adds greatly to the sacredness and 
the responsibilities of motherhood." 

Walter Savage Landor's line is still true : "Children are what 
their mothers are." Whether the mother is habitually under 
the influence of calm and tranquil emotions, or her temper is 
fluctuating or violent, or her movements are habitually ener- 
getic or soft and caressing, or she be regular or irregular in 

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RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

her ministrations to the infant in her arms, all these charac- 
teristics and habits are registered in the primeval language of 
touch upon the nervous system of the child. 

All the good habits that we have been talking about come 
chiefly through the imitation of example, and a bad child who 
has always had good examples is pretty nearly inconceivable. 
Lyman Abbott tells of a young girl who once came to him, 
as her pastor, seeking admission to the church. He asked her 
the common question: "Do you wish to be like Christ?'* 
She answered with simple sincerity: "I don't know; but I 
wish to be like mother." There was no further question 
about her admission. 

Another great help in the training of character is that all 
examples put before the children shall be, as far as possible, 
only good examples of life and conduct. It is better for this 
reason that even stories of naughty children shall be kept 
from young children. 

Play 

If the religion of the little child consists largely of the train- 
ing of his instincts toward good habits, then the greatest of 
the childish instincts, play, must have a central place in the 
child's rehgious development. "Example," Arthur Holmes tells 
us, "appeals to the imitative instinct; environment stimulates 
and suppresses a host of instincts, and play creates the boy's 
own world and fits him to it." "What a child is in play he 
is in the holy of holies of his being!" Play is free self-ex- 
pression. It is complete self-relaxation. It is the chief 
means of early development. A child in play pursues an 
ideal, and we who are older seldom pursue our ideals with 
vigor, except in the spirit of play. Play, therefore, is a re- 
ligious instrument of the highest value. 

Childish play is generally of two kinds — imitative and con- 
structive. Through imitative play the child follows the ex- 
amples set before him and dwells in a mimic world of his 

I87] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

own. Through constructive play he learns to understand 
this world and to master it. Froebel said that because man 
is divine he must also be creative, and the chief purpose of 
the kindergarten is to draw out a child's creative powers. 
Interest and effort, attention and perseverance in difHculties 
all begin to appear in creative play and with the happiest 
effect upon character. ''If children are to understand God 
as Creator," says Mrs. Mumford, ''it must be through their 
own occupations in Nature, through the planting of seeds, 
the tending of animals, through their own experiences, their 
own personal activity. Ruth and Mary, about five years old, 
shared between them a flower-bed, and in this bed they, like 
the other children in the school, had sown a few peas and 
beans. Every day they would grub up the earth v/ith their 
Httle hands, to see why the seeds did not come up, much as 
Budge and Toddy, having buried the dead bird, dug up the 
earth to find out when the bird went to heaven. In the other 
children's beds, little green seedlings were beginning to peep 
above the ground, and these two inquisitive little ones looked 
sadly at them, and then at their own bed, where nothing 
was yet showing. It was explained to them that if they 
wanted their own seeds to grow, they must be patient and 
leave them alone for awhile. So every day they visited their 
garden, and, with great self-control, refrained from touching 
the soil — and at last, one morning, they were found kneeling 
by the bed, in a perfect transport of wonder and deHght, at 
the green blades which are just peeping up above the 
ground. 

"They had seen plants growing often enough, but they had 
not paid any attention, because they themselves had not 
taken any part in sowing and caring for the seedlings. But 
now, for the first time, they were consciously face to face 
with this wonder of Nature ; yesterday there was nothing to 
be seen, today little green leaves were peeping through the 

1 88 J 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

soil! 'Was it you, children?' the teacher asked, 'who made 
them grow?' 'No,' said Mary; 'God did it.' And then the 
teacher told them how God made the sun shine, so as to 
warm the earth; then sent the dew and rain to soften the 
ground, and so helped the seeds to grow. Little Ruth and 
Mary were keenly interested; and later in the day, when the 
children were matting, out of the fullness of her heart, Ruth 
asked if she could give hers to God!" 

Often duty may be largely done by the child in the spirit 
of imaginative play. "Make this hard piece of work," says 
Arthur Holmes, "part of some game. Putting away play- 
blocks can be made the part of some game. Song and music 
can accompany a very arduous piece of work. When nat- 
ural incentives fail, artificial ones can be found. Again, 
instincts can be matched against instincts. Aversion can be 
met with desire. In this game of matching, always the high- 
est and not the lowest instincts should be appealed to first. 
Rewards should come before punishments. Deprivations 
should precede infliction of pain. Only as a last resort and 
in pecuHar cases, like open physical rebellion or cruel in- 
fliction of pain, should a trainer of normal children be com- 
pelled to step down to the physical plane of matching his 
brute powers against those of his pupils. For, remember 
once more, that the purpose is to make men and women, 
not merely to get things done." 

"It is well," says Mrs. Fisher, "to make a plain statement 
to the child of five — that he is requested to wipe the silver- 
ware because it will be of service to his mother (if he is 
lucky enough to have a mother who ever does so obviously 
necessary and useful a thing as to wash the dishes herself), 
but it is not necessary to insist that this conception of service 
shall uncompromisingly occupy his mind during the whole 
process. It does no harm if, after this statement, it is sug- 
gested that the knives and forks and spoons are shipwrecked 

[ 89 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

people in dire need of rescue, and that it would be fun to 
snatch them from their watery predicament and restore them 
safely to their expectant families in the silver drawer. By 
so doing we are not really confusing the issue or 'fooling' the 
child into a good action, if clear thinking on the part of 
adults accompany this process. We are but suiting the bur- 
den to the childish shoulders, but inducing the child to take 
a single step, which is all that any of us can take at one time, 
in the path leading to the service of others." 

Stories 
The story is par excellence the language of childhood. 
Stories are pictures of life. With children they are the most 
characteristic form of expression and are the most success- 
ful and expressive means of conveying to them our ideas. 
They are the most concrete method of teaching and the most 
interesting. By means of stories the story teller appeals not 
only to the intellect, but to the feeHngs, and adds the value 
of his own personality. They are a source of joy both now 
and through life. A source of joy is a source of strength. 
Children, as we have seen, like to create; and whether it be 
with sand, wood or words, the underlying processes are the 
same. For a child to retell a story means that he enters 
into the spirit of it; that he sees clearly the mental picture; 
that he feels its underlying life. The story is of social value. 
It interprets life to the child; and as it arouses his sympa- 
thies, it enables him to live more broadly. As a disciplinary 
agency it is unexcelled. It is far better than scolding; it is 
often clearer than a command, and it has the great advantage 
of drawing the child in bonds of affection to his elder. Still 
further is the added charm of the personal element in story 
telling. When you make a story your own and tell it, the 
listener gets the story plus your appreciation of it. In other 
words, he gets you. The story has moral value. Truth in 

[90] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

epigram is dead; in the story it lives because the story shows 
how it has been lived by actual men and women. The con- 
fidence which the story suggests gives vital power to the 
child. Through story teUing the child may be taught the 
difference between right and wrong and his mind may be 
stocked with beautiful mental images. By sympathy with 
the story the child unconsciously takes sides with the truth. 
Since the child cannot admire qualities except in persons, he 
cannot adore God or love virtue until he hears them or sees 
them in actual instances. The qualities of human character 
illustrated by stories win the child's admiration and alle- 
giance. Dr. Partridge goes so far as to say: "The story 
holds a central place in the teaching of reHgion. More than 
anything else, it can give breadth of experience, the imagin- 
ative grasp of the unseen world and the moods which are the 
bias of religion in the child." 

Many a moral victory is won or lost before the actual strug- 
gle in the objective world is begun. The battle is decided 
in the preliminary skirmish of contending mental images. If 
the child is stocked up with virtuous and inspiring mental 
images through stories, his imagination is already captured 
by goodness. If it is a fact, as psychologists tell us, that the 
mind works through the grooves of ideas furnished, and that, 
while the will has certain freedom in choosing a lot of new 
grooves and in leaving out of the mind a lot of old things, 
it chiefly moves along the rails of the ideas which have been 
laid down, then the parent who furnishes the child a treasury 
of good stories is building the roadway along which the will, 
as it develops, may most easily run. If the child exercises 
his instincts through play he exercises his memory and 
imagination largely through stories. 

It is not necessary to tag a moral to a tale in order to 
make it morally effective. If the mother can in her story 
relate a similar moral situation to that which she is trying to 

[91] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

remedy, the child will catch the point. One mother of our 
acquaintance used to make a point on Sunday to tell, under 
the name of another child character, of dispositions and inci- 
dents which she had noticed in her own children's lives during 
the week. She did this so skilfully that they would, in sur- 
prise, tell her that they had been in the same case. There was 
no difficulty as to the application. It is possible to carry 
along from time to time incidents concerning an imaginary 
''Grumpy," or "Lazy Lawrence," or "Mary Quite Contrary," 
and promise to call some child by such a title of reproach if he 
deserves it, or, still better, to tell of the exploits of a hero 
and encourage the child to incarnate him. The imagina- 
tiveness of children, particularly from four onward, is so 
strong that such an identification easily becomes one of the 
strongest moral incentives. 

The Little Child and the Bible 
The reason why the Bible is the child's first and best story- 
book is because the early Israelites were the child-nation — 
a nation with its face toward God. If it be true that the little 
child does not have an innate God-consciousness, it is never- 
theless a fact that, as Mrs. Louise Seymour Houghton tells 
us: "There is in all the world nothing so reasonable to the 
unsophisticated human mind as God. The little child, 'made 
of dust and the Father's breath,' has a bias toward the 
faculty of God-consciousness. The Old Testament is the best 
of all reHgious story-books for the little child, because it is 
the one book in the world in which it is assumed that man is 
in a divine order. The relations with God, as we find them in 
the Old Testament, are the relations of a child-people with 
their heavenly Father." 

Even the order of the books of the Bible seems appro- 
priate to the stages of the child's development. It begins 
with stories of the creation — a wonder-tale that appeals 

I92] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

strongly to the mind of the child who is beginning to ask 
"Why?" and "How?" Next comes a period of pastoral life, 
afifecting the child's out-of-doors interests; then the heroic 
stage, telling of the God of battles, the stern and just Law- 
giver and Inflictor of punishments like the parent — a narra- 
tive full of wonderful tales, of which the child never tires. 
Later comes the story of Jesus, with its spirit of love and 
self-sacrifice, especially appealing to adolescents, but con- 
taining in its child episodes much that touches the affections 
and sympathies of the Httle child. 

The parent, of course tells Bible stories by a wise selec- 
tion. The story of the creation, in the second chapter of 
Genesis, with its picturesque details and human interest, is 
far more effective than that in the first chapter or that in the 
book of Job. There are, for instance, in the Old Testament 
narratives which wind like a river under terrible crags, 
through malarial reaches and into untraversable bogs. The 
mother will forsake these for the sunlit streams and the 
musical waterfalls. The exact narrative of the Scripture 
must, of course, be freely handled. Some even accommodate 
the Bible to modern thought by up-to-date slang. This i§' 
scarcely necessary, but is perhaps a fault in the right direction. 
It would certainly not do violence to the spirit of the Scrip- 
tures if the mother should tell a Bible story about kittens 
instead of sheep, if the child were familiar with kittens and 
did not know anything about sheep. We always have the 
privilege of expanding where the original is terse, or em- 
phasizing what the original takes for granted and of using 
the imagination, especially in response to the little child*s 
questions. 

As to the method of Bible stories, perhaps the best single 
word to speak is that one should tell such stories as folk lore. 
Such they really were, and as such they should be given to 
the child. Let the mother, in telling Old Testament stories, 

[93] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

imagine herself an aged Hebrew nurse, handing down the 
traditions of her race to a circle of eager-eyed children. Let 
her tell such stories as if she were sitting in a window over- 
looking the events that were at that very moment taking 
place, of which the children could not possibly have any 
knowledge except what she makes clear to them. 

As to the purpose of Bible story-telling to a child, Mrs. 
Houghton gives us a wise word when she says that it is ''in 
order to give a religious meaning to all the experiences of 
his early Hfe." Beginning at about three, the story is to be 
told in its simplest possible outUne and as much as may be 
in the Bible words. At about five an elementary unfolding 
of its spiritual meaning may come in answer to the child's 
questions. In the story of Cain and iVbel, for instance, it is 
possible to give the narrative a religious meaning which shall 
touch the experiences of the child in two ways: by showing 
the interest which God has in the spirit of love in the gifts 
of his children, and by reminding the little one of the joy 
which comes from taming the young lion of hatred before 
it grows big and strong, and of the sorrow and pain which 
follows if this lion grows strong and cruel. 

Church-going and Sunday School 
It would seem to be a wise practice for children to begin 
the habit of church-going at about the time when they begin 
to go to public school. Even before this age most children 
are eager to attend. It seems better to keep church-going 
as a special privilege and reward for good behavior until the 
age of reasonably steady habits. In many churches the rigor 
of the long service is mitigated by a special nursery for little 
children, conducted during a part or the whole of the service. 
There is no doubt an impressiveness even in a beautiful 
service which the child does not understand that becomes a 
wholesome and precious influence through life. There are 

[94] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

some children who are so nervous that early church-going 
does not seem advisable. Church should never seem to a 
child like imprisonment. The habit should certainly begin 
as a privilege and delight and then should become a duty, 
but not an unpleasant one. 

From the very early days the child should be taught to 
love the church, as his larger household. A little girl of 
three and a half was taken one day by her father into the 
church in which she had been baptized. Pointing to the 
font, he said, "Do you know what happened to you there?" 

For a moment the child looked perplexed, and nestling up 
to her father said, "You tell me, daddy." 

"No," he replied, "I want you to tell me," 

There was another moment's hesitation and then she 
looked up to him, and very solemnly said, "I was heavened 
there!" 

Would that the church might mean this to every little 
child. 

In many homes the custom has grown of regarding Sun- 
day school as a substitute for the church service. The 
expectation may be that this will gradually lead later to the 
habit of church attendance. It turns out, however, that it is 
often a distinct obstacle to such a habit; and nothing could 
be more sad to those who desire that the church should 
have a large place in the future than to see a throng of 
children going home from Sunday school while a smaller 
throng of adults is going to church. Some very recent 
studies of children's intellectual capacity lead us to suppose 
that there is a very distinct break at about the beginning of 
the fifth year. This seems to be a period of distinct awaken- 
ing, both of mind and will. It is a new phase of the curiosity 
period, and is a season when many children begin to become 
rebellious. Whether this somewhat sudden development is 
due to the stimulus of going to school and coming into con- 

[95] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

tact with other children is not yet settled. Many of our 
religious leaders, however, feel that this is a strong indication 
that the beginning of the fifth year, rather than before, is 
the earhest time that a child may wisely attend Sunday school. 
Before that year he is incapable of class instruction, and the 
habit of inattention, formed then, is a barrier to reUgious 
education later. Just as public schools, even the kinder- 
garten, prefer not to take children until they are five, so, 
perhaps, the Sunday school will some day follow their ex- 
ample. Before that time the child needs individual instruc- 
tion and should receive his religious training from his 
mother. 



[96] 



CHAPTER VIII 
FACTS FOR ENCOURAGEMENT 

The Child Is on Our Side 

One fact of infinite encouragement, so soon as the days 
of infancy are over, is that we really have the child on our 
side. 

The moral law is resident within him — it is not an impor- 
tation. If we be wise and careful, he may come to recognize, 
whether as the unfoldment of his conscience or not, the 
propriety of our correction. Mrs. Mills gives us this: 

"I was out," she said, ''and when I came home. Doctor," 
her husband, "said to me, 'Robert has been naughty. I have 
put him to bed. You must not sympathize with him.* Then 
he told me the story. Robert cried out when he saw me, 
'I don't see why I have to be put to bed ; I only blew some 
soap bubbles through a pipe, and Ben and Sam, they just 
poured out water by the pailful!' 'But, Robbie,' I said, 'you 
told a lie !' He stopped crying and looked at me with wide- 
open eyes. 'Did I? Did I tell a lie? Oh, well, it's all right 
then; I'll stay here all day.' So he settled himself down, 
entirely willing to take his punishment." 

Mrs. Hewitt has another, like unto it : 

"My son" said a mother sadly, "it grieves me beyond 
anything to put you to bed this hot summer afternoon, but 
you know you have gone away a second time without letting 
me know and have caused me a great deal of anxiety." 

The boy's eyes opened wide. "Why, you do have to!" he 
exclaimed. "You promised, and if you didn't do it, it would 
be telling a story just as much as if you promised me some- 
thing good and didn't give it to me." 

[97] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

From this the child advances to the situation of not merely 
accepting, but of being ready to assist in his own correction. 
Says Sully: "The most curious instance of this moral rigor 
towards self which I have met with is the following. A girl 
of nine had been naughty, and was very sorry for her mis- 
behaviour. Shortly after she came to her lesson limping, 
and remarked that she felt very uncomfortable. Being asked 
by her governess what was the matter with her, she said: Tt 
was very naughty of me to disobey you, so I put my right 
shoe on to my left foot and my left shoe on to my right 
foot' 

"The facts here briefly illustrated seem to me to show 
that there is in the child from the first a rudiment of true 
law-abidingness. And this is a force of the greatest conse- 
quence to the disciplinarian. It is something which takes 
side in the child's breast with the reasonable governor and 
the laws which he or she administers. It secures ready com- 
pliance with a large part of the discipline enforced. When 
the impulse urging towards license has been too strong, and 
disobedience ensues, this same instinct comes to the aid of 
order and good conduct by inflicting pains which are the 
beginning of what we call remorse." 

Self-control 
After conscience comes self-control. It is the conviction 
of many experienced parents that children can be deliberately 
trained to control their desires at a very early period. Even 
mfancy is not too early to begin this which is the most 
important and permanent of all kinds of education. The 
roots of will development are in obedience. There is an 
obedience which is conformity and there is an obedience 
which is self-control. The former is entirely forced; the latter 
is voluntary. Sometimes the former is necessary, but the 
latter is the more desirable. Even when we give commands 

[98] 



FACTS FOR ENCOURAGEMENT 

to a young child we do not always have to use force to get 
them obeyed. The child soon learns to inhibit, to stop him- 
self. At first he does this reluctantly and only when we are 
present. By and by he does so more easily and even when 
we are absent. When a child is able to restrain his own acts 
he is beginning to show will power, and the more regularly 
he does so the more adept he becomes in self-mastery. A 
writer in the Foundation Library illustrates the process by 
the story of two small boys who saw some flowers in a yard. 
One ran in and stole some, and the other refrained. The 
one who yielded thought how easily he could get therh, and 
while he remembered how wrong he had been told such con- 
duct was, he also recalled that no special harm had come to 
him before, and his imagination of what he might do with 
them seized him and he rushed off with them. The other 
boy saw the same flowers ; he too thought how easily he could 
get them; but when he thought of the wrong he would do 
there came into his mind the many stories his parents had 
told him about the meanness and shame and ruin of thievery, 
and he also thought how bravely he had resisted once before 
and how glad he was, and so he went straight away and 
thought no more about them. You see, his parents had filled 
his mind and heart with a stock of good ideas that would 
come up in time to help his will. 

"The one boy and his parents had taken advantage of the 
laws of mental life and had built up in him strong and help- 
ful groups of ideas that would help his will to do right. The 
other boy had by his habits of acting and thinking built up 
groups of ideas and so associated them that they hindered 
his will when he tried to do right, and helped even to weaken 
the effort of the will itself." Since all ideas that enter into 
the mind tend to go at once into action, to express them- 
selves, the more right ideas, habits of right action and right 
desires we can establish the more we strengthen the will to 

[99] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

select from among all possible ideas those which represent 
the will to righteousness. % 

Dickinson wisely says: 

''Control must come from within. Force, suppression and 
chastisement have in themselves little controlling and no 
reformative effect, but wx know that if we furnish a legiti- 
mate way for the boy to use his activities, if we change the 
boy's activities, the habits will in time change; the bad habits 
will waste and die from disuse, and the good habits will take 
their place. So it is that every criminal, every so-called bad 
boy, must reform himself; that is the only way that any one 
can be reformed." 

And what he says of the bad child is equally true of the 
good child and the undeveloped child. If we can so wisely 
govern our children that they shall recognize the propriety 
of our endeavors and learn to beheve that we are usually 
just, always kind and often right, they will then have the 
courage to try to control themselves. And when they have 
done that, the problem of external government begins to 
fade away. 

For, eventually, as Mrs. Macy, the teacher of Helen Keller, 
says: "There is no education except self education, no gov- 
ernment but self government." 

Like the growing of all other beautiful things, it is a proc- 
ess. The good cheer, the reasonableness, the patience of 
the parent slowly and certainly build up the moral fiber of 
childhood. The child's standards of right and wrong are not 
formed in a day, but yesterday and today and tomorrow 
and every day, out of the examples, experiences and com- 
panionships of daily living. 



[IGO] 



SUMMARY 



SUMMARY 

The Purpose of Government. — To protect our little children until 
they are old enough to live a life of positive goodness. 

How Children Regard Law. — It is perfectly normal for them to 
come into innocent collision with law, particularly toward precautions 
which they do not comprehend. They are naturally selfish and have 
limited conscience. Eagerly they seek their own pleasure, they feel 
no self-condemnation, they regard opposition as hostility, and they do 
not care what people think of them. They obey because they must. 
Yet they like regularity. After being forced to obey, they like to force 
their juniors to obey. 

How Children Break the Law. — Chiefly by general disorder, nega- 
tive offenses and misdirected energy. 

How Children Regard Punishment. — They feel frightened, un- 
happy and estranged. They differ, according to their temperament, in 
their reaction to authority, but most normal children are glad that their 
parents are strong enough to make them mind. 

The Parent as Educator. — Must understand child nature. 

The Right to ask Obedience. — In order to do this the parent must 
be healthy-minded, have a sense of humor, self-control and fairness. 

The Right to Disobey. — A child who uses sense will frequently come 
into circumstances when it is right for him to disobey. We should 
take the trouble to find out the circumstances. 

A Discussion of Fairness.— In order to be fair we must recognize 
the strength of the child's desires, and especially his reluctance to be in- 
terrupted. 

The Grace to Overlook. — We need to gain perspective and the sense 
of proportion. 

The Need of Firmness. — Firmness is not unkind. It always wins in 
the end. It must be invariable in keeping its promises. We have no 
right to punish in anger, but we must feel a "moral warmth" against the 
offence though not toward the offender. This firmness must start at 
the very beginning of the child's life. 

Can a "Good Fellow" be Firm? — The strong parent can be a play- 
fellow and at the same time a leader. Father and mother must be in 
absolute unity in home discipline. 

Government by Suggestion. — Quiet, positive parental advice is usu- 
ally efficacious. 

Government by Words.— Be sure the child hears and understands 
each command. _ Commands or advice should be given calmly, im- 
pressively, decisively and cheerfully. 

Government through Choice. — There is a difference between ask- 
ing a favor and giving a command. Utilizing the choice of a child 
develops his will-power. 

Government by Punishment.— Punishment is not a "right" but a 

Iioi] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

duty. Its purpose is to correct a harm. It should be in harmony with 
child nature, appeal to the higher motives, develop virtue and be just. 

"Natural"" Punishment. — "Natural" punishment educates the expe- 
rience. It is just and certain and does not seem unfair to the child. 
Its chief use is to convince him oi the wisdom and authority of his 
parents. Its limitations are that it is not always real punishment and 
that it is not always safe to use it. 

Punishment by Deprivation. — It is the most easily understood of 
the "natural" punishments. It is effective in disobedience. 

Corporal Punishment. — It requires the most impartial justice and 
perfect self-control; it is usually dangerous; it is the last resort; it 
is not always regarded by children as unjust or unreasonable. It should 
be administered only with calmness. It has certain positive advantages. 
All corrections should be prompt. Bedtime is good for cheerful coun- 
sel, but it is not the best time for punishment. 

Government by Reward. — It is dangerous stimulation. Praise must 
not be extravagant. Physical rewards for virtue tend to substitute 
wrong inducement. 

Government by Emulation. — Also perilous. It tends to create envy 
and hatred. 

Government by Activity. — The best of all. It is the easiest and 
most productive form of government. 

Sex Discipline. — We are to answer the child's questions simply and 
frankly and tell the facts without self-consciousness. Training in self- 
control now means the strongest safeguard to purity later. 

Religious Nurture. — We encourage religious habits through prayer ; 
v/e stimulate religious feeling by stories ; we exercise the instinct of the 
social nature through play. All this is in the direction of self-develop- 
ment. The child must develop himself before he can serve others, 
but since the little egoist has sympathy and affection as well as egoism, 
he possesses the potentiality of generosity. Already he begins to 
show certain beautiful uncovenanted graces which prophesy that he 
is to become a good friend and neighbor. Pie is now chiefly in the 
process of becoming conscious of spiritual things. His business is 
to grow a conscience. All these processes are gradual. 

References 
Books upon the Philosophy of Child Management 

Moral Education, 332 pp., by Edward Howard Griggs, published by 
B. W. Huebsch. N. Y. 
A most thoughtful book upon the whole subject of moral training, 
with special chapters upon the principles of government in the home, 
the nature, function and administration of corrective discipline, per- 
sonal influence and example. 

Studies of Childhood, 527 pp., by James Sully, published by D. Ap- 
pleton & Co., N. Y, 
There is a most useful chapter entitled "Under Law," in which the 

[ 102 ] 



SUMMARY 

author discusses the attitude of the child toward law and the conse- 
quent position to be taken by the wise lawgiver. 
Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young, 

298 pp., by Jacob Abbott, published by Harper & Brothers, New 

York. 
This fine old book has been a wise guide to parental training for 
nearly half a century. It was epoch-making when it appeared, and its 
chief thesis and its common sense are both still valid. 
Home, School and Vacation. 220 pp., by Annie Winsor Allen, pub- 
lished by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 
A well-arranged sketch of the development to be expected and 
worked for with a normal child, with one chapter on Discipline that 
deserves to be writen in letters of gold. 
The Normal Child and Primary Education, 343 pp., by Arnold L. 

and Beatrice Chandler Gesell, published by Ginn & Co., Boston. 
In addition to a most valuable and animated discussion of childhood, 
there is a short but useful chapter upon discipHne. 
Children's Rights. 235 pp., by Kate Douglas Wiggin, published by 

Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 
The first chapter deals with the subject of the book. The seventh 
chapter, by Nora A. Smith, the sister of Mrs. Wiggin, is a valuable 
one upon child government. 
The Care and Training of Children, 233 pp., by Le Grand Kerr, 

M. D., published by Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York. 
This is not only a good guide to the physical care of the child, but 
there are two excellent chapters, one upon government and the other 
upon punishment. 
On the Ethical Training of Children, 'j^ pp., (a section of a book 

entitled "Nursery and Sickroom"), by Isabel Margesson, published 

by E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. 
Based upon sound child study, the book is most practical in its sug- 
gestions as to the place of punishment in the young child's life. 

Books Containing Real Instances 
Bringing Up the Boy, 227 pp., by Kate Upson Clark, published by 
Thomas Y, Crowell & Co., New York. . 
A book long established in popular favor, characterized by its good 
sense. 

Making the Best of Our Children, First Series, 254 pp., by Mary 
Wood-Allen, published by A. C. McClurg Co., Chicago. 
The strong point about Mrs. Wood-Allen's book is that it deals 
entirely with concrete instances. In the early portion of this volume 
several examples of practical difficulties with young children are cited 
and two parallel anecdotes are given, one showing the wrong and the 
other the right way of dealing with the case. 

The Mother-Artist, 148 pp., by Jane Dearborn Mills, pubHshed by 
Palmer Co., Boston. 
Contains more sentiment than information, but has two good chap- 
*~^ers upon home training. 

[ 103 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Misunderstood Children; i6S pp., by Elizabeth Harrison, published by 
the Central Publishing Co., Chicago. 

The sub-title of this book is "Sketches Taken from Life." There are 
seventeen such sketches, humorous and pathetic, all from the lives 
of young children, pointedly suggesting the right way to deal with dif- 
ficult cases by means of thoughtful observation of child nature. 
Beckonings from Little Hands, i66 pp., by Patterson DuBois, pub- 
lished by Dodd, Meade & Co., New York. 

Eight studies in child life. The book is sentimental throughout, but 
it is, on the whole,, sensible and it contains one famous chapter entitled 
'The Fire-Builders." 

Books upon Details of Child Training 

As THE Twig Is Bent, 164 pp., by Susan Chenery, published by Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co., Boston. 
A very helpful little book, in story form, telling how a mother 
trained her young children, one a daughter of five and the other a son 
of four. There is a chapter upon "The Child's Thought of Death" and 
another on "The Child's Religion." 

The Training of the Child, 93 pp., by G. Spiller, published by T. C. 
& E. C. Jack, London. 
Extraordinarily sensible treatment of the home training of children. 
The author discusses especially the place of habit, the necessity of 
obedience and the part of commendation. 

Your Child, Today and Tomorrow, 234 pp., by Sidonie Matzner 

Gruenberg, published by the J, B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. 
Mrs. Gruenberg takes up the homely problems of parents, but from 
the standpoint oi one who has read the best recent literature as well 
as having been a practising mother. Yet there is no scholasticism about 
her very practical manual. 
A Manual of Play, by William Byron Forbush, published by the 

American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia. 
The first handbook that has been written for the home on the value 
and methods of free play, as distinct from games. The home play- 
room, the backyard, nursery play, constructive play and dramatic play 
are some of the topics discussed. 
How to Tell Stories to Children, by Sara Cone Bryant, published by 

Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 
This volume, which deals with the art, purpose and method of story- 
telling, is the best book of the kind published. It is full of very inter- 
esting and valuable suggestions. 
A MoNTESsoRi Mother, 246 pp., by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, published 

by Henry Holt & Co., New York. 
The most helpful for the average mother of all the books on the 
Montessori system. Airs, Fisher shows how it is possible to use the 
Montessori devices in the nursery. 
The Home-Made Kindergarten, 117 pp., by Nora Archibald Smith, 

published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 

[104] 



SUMMARY 

Miss Smith shows how it is possible for the mother who does not 
have access to a kindergarten to give her child the benefit of the best 
the kindergarten has to offer. 

Books Upon Sex Instruction and Discipline 
For Parents 

The Sexual Life of the Child, 339 pp., by Albert Moll, M. D., pub- 
Hshed by Macmillan Co., New York. 

This contains about all that is known and much more than parents 
need to know about the subject. Because of its thoroughness and com- 
pleteness, it offers a compendium upon every anxiety, including per- 
sonal problems and care. There is a short chapter at the close upon 
sexual education. 

The Biology of Sex, 105 pp., by T. W. Galloway, published by D. C. 
Heath, Boston. 

An extremely sensible book, both of facts and of material for sex 
education. It is especially prepared for teachers and for parents. 
The Social Emergency, 224 pp., edited by William T. Foster, pub- 
lished by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 

A group of eleven papers prepared by earnest students of this sub- 
ject in the far Northwest. It covers everj' phase of sex education, and 
does so simply, sanely and satisfactorily. As a text-book for those 
who are studying how to make sex education practicable, this is un- 
surpassed. 

Sex Education, 150 pp., by Ira S. Wile, M. D., published by Duffield & 
Co., New York. 

On the whole the best handbook for parents. It suggests the proper 
instruction for each of the three periods of boyhood, which the author 
calls the age of mythology, the age of chivalry and the age of civic 
awakening. There is a useful appendix containing terminology and a 
carefully chosen bibliography. 

To Use with Boys up to Eight \ 

The Spark of Life, 62 pp., by Margaret W. Morley, published by 

Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 
How Shall I Tell My Child? 62 pp., by Rose Woodallen Chapman, 

published by Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 
For Children Six to Ten, and For Boys Ten to Thirteen, 4 pp. each, 

published by the Spokane Society of Social and Moral Hygiene, 

Spokane, Wash. 

Books Upon Religious Nurture 

The Training of Children in Religion, 22q pp., by George Hodges, 
published by D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
This book is full of the reverent spirit of religion and of a sym- 
pathetic knowledge of childhood. It contains a little study of child 
nature, some suggestions upon the theological training of children, a 

[1053 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

treasury of prayers, suggestions for reading to children out of the 
Bible, and a discussion of what is meant by "a good child." 
The Dawn of Character, 225 pp., by Edith E. Read Mumford, pub- 
lished by Longmans, Green & Co., London, England. 

Mrs. Mumford makes a careful study of the mind of the young 
child, and has a particularly valuable chapter upon "The Dawn of 
Religion." 

Introduction to Chh.d Study, 348 pp., by W. B. Drumxmond, pub- 
lished by Longmans, Green & Co., London, England. 

Our best simple text-book on child study. There is a chapter on 
"Some Moral Characteristics," and one chapter on "Religion and the 
Child," in which he outlines carefully the early religious conceptions 
commonly cherished by young children. 

The Child and His Religion, 124 pp., by George E. Dawson, published 
by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 

Four unrelated chapters, one upon "The Natural Religion of the 
Child," which goes even more thoroughly than does Drummond into 
early religious ideas. The chapter upon "Children's Interest in the 
Bible" is the most thorough study of the subject which we possess 
and emphasizes the fact that the predominating interest of young chil- 
dren is in the Old Testament. 

Telling Bible Stories, 204 pp., by Louise Seymour Houghton, pub- 
lished by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 

A most careful and helpful description of methods of telling Old 
Testament stories to children, illustrated by many paraphrases, and 
suggesting the best attitude toward some of the difficult Biblical 
problems. 

The Origin and Nature of Children's Faith in God: An article by 
George A. Coe in the American Journal of Theology for April, 

1914. 

A brilliant article, arguing that the child responds more distinctly 
and broadly both to the God-idea and to the problems of duty than 
the genetic psychologists have asserted. 

The Training of Children From the Cradle to School, 91 pp., by 
Mrs. H. C. Cradock, published by George Bell & Son, London. 

An elementary book upon the home training of children. Three chap- 
ters upon moral and religious training discuss the relation of example, 
habit and religious ceremonials to the religious development of the 
child. 



[106] 



BOOK II 
THE HOME TRAINING OF SCHOOL BOYS 



CHAPTER IX 
THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

"The essential of government," says John W. Dinsmore, 
"is a good governor/' The attitude of the parent is the chief 
factor in child-government. The first element in the parental 
attitude should be fairness, honesty. 

Honesty 

Something was said of this in the early part of Book I, 
but we need all the more to be reminded, at the very begin- 
ning of this discussion, of the necessity of honesty, not only 
because our children between six and twelve are very unlikely 
to tell us that they have discovered that we are not perfect, 
but because they are often pathetically unresentful. They 
do cry out at abuse and injustice, but until they are a dozen 
years of age they forgive us so readily that we do not realize 
the scars which our unfair or thoughtless behavior may be 
leaving. 

We are not predominantly unfair. It is only when we start 
suddenly that we usually are blind to justice. If, when about 
to quell a household riot or to punish an egregious fault, 
we would take time to say rapidly to ourselves the words 
"What? Why? How?" until we were sure we could answer 
each one of them, we should be more likely to act fairly and 
effectively. Ernest Hamlin Abbott brightly says: "On the 
way from the living-room to the nursery, the hastening par- 
ent can, for example, perform this rapid mental scale pas- 
sage: To what purpose am I interfering? Is it to suppress 
a noise? or to avert a danger? or to teach courtesy? or to 
instruct in morals? or to do justice? or to establish an 
amicable basis? Later, and perhaps m6re deliberately, he 

[109] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

will run over this scale of question: What means shall I 
use? Shall it be force? or argument? or ridicule? or explana- 
tion? or advice? or instruction? or command? or punishment? 
It requires practice to pounce upon the note principally out 
of tune in a wealth of discord, and then to choose the one 
tool that will set it right ; but then, there is no vocation 
more exciting than parenthood." If at the time we are about 
to act we find that we do not know what we ought to do, 
we should usually accomplish little harm if for a while we did 
nothing. Few childish transgressions demand the hghtning 
stroke of penalty. Delayed recompense is as impressive as it 
is just. And if after engaging in a deed of discipline we would 
always ask, 'Would I consent to be treated as I have just 
treated my child?" our next effort in this direction would be 
more successful. 

"Don't be jerky," says Dinsmore. While none of us can 
keep continually the highest levels of honesty, we would be 
prouder of ourselves if we were less spasmodic in our justice, 
if we could be fair by habit rather than by special 
appointment. 

Whatever may be the success with a baby of a parent who 
is wise rather than good we may be sure that in the case of 
school children who are coming to years of moral sense 
''mother's love" will not be sufBcient unless it is found in the 
heart of a woman who is fair and unselfish before she is a 
mother. 

Listening 

The best recourse of a parent is to understand the attitude 
of the child. It is when you cannot attain this that you do not 
know what to do. And in such a situation what safety have 
you to do anything? Anybody can thwart a child, anyone 
can beat him, but nobody who misunderstands him can direct 
him or really govern him. So the perpetual position of 
parenthood must be that of listening. 

[no] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

Mrs. Allen describes the difference between the adult out- 
look and the child outlook when she says: **We see his acts 
in their results. He sees them in their causes. His acts have 
not the same meaning for him that they have for us. We 
cannot impress upon ourselves too carefully that disobedience, 
naughtiness, untruthfidness are simply our names for actions of 
the child. They show how the acts strike us. They indicate 
our desire and our outlook; that is, the objective aspect. If 
the child were giving names, he would choose some word 
that would indicate his desire and his outlook, the spring of 
action in his own mind; that is, the subjective aspect, a very 
different thing. We say, quite truly, that some act of his 
was disobedient to us. He says that it was agreeable to him. 
We say it was naughty; he says it was funny. We say it was 
untruthful; he says it was necessary or perhaps mistaken. 
Or his cause of difference may be even simpler. He may 
have wholly misinterpreted a word that he used or we used." 

Perhaps the greatest reason why we should respect our 
children enough to endeavor to understand them is the fact 
that often the characteristic in the child's nature that gives us 
the most trouble is going to turn to be one of his most pre- 
cious traits. If we do not know this, we may, through annoy- 
ance, destroy what is invaluable. It is never safe to pull up 
bulbs because they are ugly. 

And our listening must be constant and continuous. Mrs. 
Allen counsels that the child must always be ''freshly noticed" 
as if we did not know him before, and never "treated as if 
he were in last month's state of mind." 

These statements suggest the importance of always hear- 
ing the children's side of every matter. Not only is there 
danger that we shall not know all if we do not hear it, but 
if we snub and discourage the child then he becomes dumb- 
before us and we lose forever our most direct means of 
interpreting him. The early breaking of the habit of con- 

[III] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

fiding in the parent leads to later tragedies and misunder- 
standing. 

Let us illustrate a few of these experiments in interpreting 
children. Take the matter of crying. In a particular in- 
stance, is the child crying for you or for himself? That is, 
is he in real distress, or is he endeavoring, by crying, to have 
his own way? If he is in distress, is he frightened or tired 
or angry or in bodily discomfort? Does he need reassurance, 
or rest, or distraction, or a cool bath? The mother soon 
learns by the varying tones the meaning of infant cries. 
Later, they need even more careful discrimination. 

We need constantly to dissociate our annoyance or be- 
wilderment from the child's viewpoint. The little boy who 
seized and rumpled his father's silk hat turned out to be 
"trying to look like papa." The youngster who overturned 
the milk pitcher was trying to help mother. The little boy 
who, after having been nourished by a good breakfast, was 
punished for being active and noisy was really penalized 
because he was healthy and happy. 

So it is with the children as they grow older. A school- 
master was told by a neighbor in indignation that his son 
had been fighting with the neighbor's boy and had broken 
his arm, and he insisted upon the father's giving his son 
''a good Christian licking." Though tempted sorely to 
accommodate and thus soothe his neighbor, the father wisely 
pursued his usual habit, and investigated. He discovered 
that the neighbor's boy, who was older, had been continually 
tormenting his own child and inciting him to combat, but 
that he had refrained until this occasion, when the neighbor's 
boy had called his father a vile name. Then he fought him, 
and as an incident of the struggle the soft bone of the arm 
was broken. "Could I ever have forgiven myself," said the 
father, "if I had whipped my son because he stood up for my 
honor?" 

[112] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

Foresight 
All parents cannot be prophets, but all can learn to foresee 
the usual or common emergencies, and prepare for them. 
Why should a mother punish a child for breaking things 
which she herself left about where they could be broken? 
Why do parents never think to carry a basket of playthings 
with the children on a long railroad journey? Recognizing 
that idleness is always mischief, why does not the mother 
forecast the return from school or the rainy Saturday by the 
five minutes of vigorous planning which would save her 
hours of inconvenience? One mother who found that her 
little boy was getting into the habit of waking early and 
crying for entertainment placed a surprise on the chair by 
his cot every night for him to discover and play with quietly 
as soon as he awoke. Edward Everett Hale's reminiscence of 
the clever way his mother planned in advance that the after- 
school should be spent profitably at home is familiar: "1 
have stated already the absolute rule that we must report 
at home before we went anywhere to play after school. I 
think this rule affected our lives a great deal more than my 
mother meant it should in laying it down. She simply 
wanted to know at certain stages of the day where her chil- 
dren were. But practically the rule worked thus: We 
rushed home from school, very likely with a plan on foot 
for the common, or for some combined movement for the 
other boys. We went into the house to report. There was 
invariably ginger bread ready for us, which was made in 
immense quantities for the purpose. This luncheon was 
ready not only for us, but for any boys we might bring with 
us. When once we arrived at home the home attractions 
asserted themselves. There was some chemical experiment 
to be continued, or there was some locomotive to be dis- 
played to another boy, or there had come in a new 
number of the Juvenile Miscellany. In a word, we were se- 

[113] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

duced up into the attic, and up in the attic we were apt 
to stay." 

The parent must have been denied a prescience which he 
commonly exerts in other realms if he cannot, by ingeniously 
planned activities, "head off" the major part of the injuri- 
ous mischief before it gets under way. 

Particularly is it true in every parent's observation that 
there are certain days of which he must beware. As the 
heroine puts it in those charmingly invented ''Letters of a 
Child to Her Husband," "I get so tired trying to be good 
all day every day, that some mornings, not often you know, 
but just once in a while when I wake up in the morning, 
I say to God, whatever happens today, God, please don't 
count it, and then somehow I can't tell you how, but some- 
how I know he doesn't. And all that day I don't have to 
think about what I do, whether it is good or bad, and whether 
God puts it down in his book or not, because I know he 
doesn't. It is just a different day." 

Mothers may differ as to the actual liberty of responsibility 
which may legitimately be felt upon such days. There is 
probably no difference of opinion as to the desirability of a 
certain amount of dodging then on the part of the mother 
as well as of the child. While the child is avoiding his con- 
science, the mother may well keep clear of occasions of 
offence. ''Some husbands," says E. P. St. John, "plan to 
avoid certain topics on days when their wives are especially 
nervous. Why should not both use equal tact in dealing 
with a child? Care as to the temperature of the bath, the 
avoidance of haste in combing the hair, discouragement of 
association with certain children — these and many other 
similar steps which will occur to the thoughtful parent will 
help to smooth the path of domestic discipline, and at the 
same time aid the child to free himself from the slavery of 
passion. Careful consideration of the child's condition of 

[114] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

health will point to times when especial care should be used." 
The weather, especially in our country of changeable 
weather, has an unrecognized importance in child conduct. 
Dr. Groszmann remarks: "An overheated or overcrowded 
room, lack of oxygen and of exercise, fatigue, nervous ten- 
sion due to unhygienic conditions of work and program, of 
seats and desks, and Hghts and air, etc., etc. ; the effect of 
the weather upon pupils and teachers, and many other things 
may be responsible for many disagreeable happenings in the 
schoolroom. It has been statistically proven that more 
crimes and suicides have been committed, and more school 
punishments recorded, on cloudy days, and when the air 
was oppressive, the weather threatening, and the electric 
tension excessive, than on bright and pleasant days." 

A great many unpleasant incidents might be avoided in 
the house if mothers were more quick to recognize the early 
signs of fatigue. Sensible was the parent who decided that 
she would always be very patient with her children after four 
o'clock in the afternoon, because she knew they were getting 
tired. 

This foresight of ours should be exerted not only as to the 
impending events of the day, but also in reference to the 
entire career of the child. It can appear in our very attitude 
toward him. Ennis Richmond has a charming phrase about 
"appealing to the advance natures" of the young. The full 
quotation is as follows: "There are certain people who 'get 
on' with children in a way quite their own; in our usual 
thoughtless way we say: 'So-and-so understands children 
thoroughly.' He does not; he understands what the chil- 
dren may become, and respects that possibility. If we listen 
to this kind of man when he is with children, we shall find that 
what charms children in him, as different from other people, 
is that he does not treat them as his inferiors in any way, and 
that what he says to them, where it is different to what the 

[IIS] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

ordinary person would say to them, has a quality which is 
quite as charming to ourselves as to the children. It is the 
appeal to their advance natures that delights them, a gUmpse 
into the wider world of which they are to take possession 
bye-and-bye. It is not what he says, that may be the purest 
childish nonsense, but the light in which he puts it, the way 
in which he invites the child to regard it; this is what charms 
the child, because it is the touch on the advance chord, whose 
vibrations give a mystic joy which the child itself cannot 
nor wishes to analyze. And the child who gets a joy in 
this way is the child for whom most may be hoped in the 
future." 

Foresight thus easily runs into trust, and the time comes 
when the mother should be able to say to her child, when 
she knows he clearly sees his duty, 'Tt is unnecessary for 
me to tell you what to do; you know what is right, and of 
course you will do that." This trust and expectancy throw 
the whole responsibility where it belongs, and at the same 
time appeal to the child's better nature, and so a double 
purpose is served. It is an appeal that will seldom be 
disregarded. 

Insight 

Closely akin to foresight is insight. Insight is the ability 
to get the inner meaning of every situation, as foresight is 
the ability to provide for every situation. 

If we could occasionally get off and take a bird's-eye view 
of our young people — see them as strangers see them, for 
example — we should take up our work once more with new 
composure. What have we here in the nursery? To the 
mother's tired eyes it seems a scene of confusion, filled with 
noisy and warring children, but to the larger insight it is the 
home of princes, of whom we have the privilege of being' 
guardians. Each of these kings-to-be is already manifest in 
possibilities. Richard, who has been so exasperating, is ever 

[ii6] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

quick in affectionateness and in gusty repentances. Albert's 
smouldering temper is matched by his unwearying persist- 
ency. David, who never finishes anything, nevertheless sur- 
prised you last summer by carrying out his hundred-mile 
hike. Martha is a slattern in dress but a wonder in school, 
and she has recently shown evidences of a growing personal 
pride. That fault in Emily, which you tried in vain last year 
to cure, seems to have cured itself. 

And so it goes. Shifting traits, advancing wisdom and 
self-control, savage strength that promises a great endow- 
ment of will-power, a winsomeness that captures love, in- 
stincts coming in turn to their fruition — these are some of 
the prophetic changes that are continually showing in the 
home where there are children. There are alarming traits 
a-plenty, old racial and new personal inheritances and imi- 
tative follies, but who can deny also that, as in Stevenson's 
Lantern Bearers, the lighted lamp is still carried under the 
rough jacket. Because the instincts do unfold in order, be- 
cause the trying traits do not all appear at once, we get a 
little grace of leisure between, which means time to study and 
plan for the next uprising when it comes. 

The thought that we are engaged in training kings was 
advisedly worded. Those who dwell in kings' houses treat 
them with respect. One of the customary marks of respect 
is courtesy. Courtesy is something more. Griggs has 
said beautifully: *'The behavior of love is courtesy." He 
continues : 

*Tt is possible to teach the virtue of love by wearing 
habitually its garment, courtesy, and so to lead children from 
an imitation of the behavior of love to an imitation into its 
spirit. We sometimes feel that children are too small to 
deserve the little courtesies of life: quite apart from the 
fact that courtesy should come from within and not be dictated 
by the condition of the recipient, we cannot be too scrupu- 

[117] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOAIE 

lously courteous to children, since this is the most effective 
means of inculcating the highest virtue of character. 

"It is most important that this garment of courtesy should 
be worn habitually in the life of the home. Nothing is more 
paradoxical than that perversity of human nature which leads 
us to be scrupulously courteous to the stranger within our 
gates, while we feel that we are excusable for expressing 
all our meanness and irritation to those we know and love 
best. It is true we ought to be able to rest in those who 
love us, and not need to keep up a manner foreign to our 
spirits; but we should see to it that the manner natural to 
our spirits is the unvarying courtesy that clothes a loving 
heart. We should be able to wear our every-day clothes at 
home, but they should be just as appropriate and beautiful 
in their way as any other garments. We ought never to 
appear in moral undress before those we love. In fact, the 
need is to make of courtesy, not a garment we remove and 
put on for different occasions, but rather a living and har- 
monious body to clothe inseparably the loving spirit within. 
Yet if we cannot be courteous all the time, would it not be 
better to spend our weariness and irritation on the stranger 
within our gates, who comes and goes and cares very little, 
and save every element of exquisite courtesy for those 
whose lives are Hfted or broken by our sHght words and 
deeds?" 

A special grace of courtesy is not only that we should not 
speak to our young discourteously but that we should not 
speak of them in the presence of others in such a way as to 
cause them embarrassment. 

A further expression of courtesy is the avoidance of 
sarcasm. Sarcasm is a tempting devil, and its mischief is 
that it always implies a superiority on the part of the user 
with a corresponding weakness of the victim. Its use 
generally exasperates the child, who seldom gives us the 

[ii8] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

satisfaction of even appreciating the wit we have wasted on 
him. 

Companionship 

We can have neither insight nor understanding without 
giving companionship in exchange. **Do you know your 
child's dreams?" asks a good teacher. Some parents do not 
even know that their child has dreams. 

In these days of the expansion of motherhood (out of the 
home) and the shrinkage of fatherhood (in the home) it 
seems necessary to urge upon the male parents a practising 
rather than a consulting relationship to their children. 

Many fathers are artful dodgers. "When it comes to 
family discipline," as a neighbor recently confessed to me, 
*T either skid or skiddoo." Father makes it his conscien- 
tious business to give his family everything that they need — 
except himself. "I never had a father," said one friend to 
another. "Did he die when you were very young?" asked 
the other sympathetically. "Oh, my father isn't dead, he's 
a Shriner." 

I know our excuse: "We haven't got time." Industry 
most invades American homes, not by child labor, but by 
steaHng the fathers. Even philanthropy takes us away from 
home, and thus we have the spectacle of reputable men 
earnestly fulfilling every social obligation — except their 
principal one. Even "reHgious duties" have been known to 
cause a man to leave his children practically half-orphans. 

Our children do rather get us at a disadvantage. A 
healthy boy returned from school is just ready for excite- 
ment at that end of the day when father has had all the ex- 
citement he wants. When father wants to be coddled son 
wants to be amused. It is natural for father to encourage 
son to take this amusement in the most comfortable way, 
outside the house if possible. It is natural to feel that his 
own ease and the child's morals require absent treatment. 

[119] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

American fathers often feel an envy for the EngUsh gentry 
who, by sending their lads away from home at about ten, 
raise a race of fatherless sons. But then no American wants 
his sons to be like Englishmen, and there is no use for a 
nation that lives for its women to ape one that lives for its 
men. 

It takes two parents to bring up a child. Shy though 
he may be to confess it, a father is really an admirable 
person to be a parent. He has the freshness of approach 
of one who is not around all the time and he is supposed 
to have that larger outlook which is so essential to the lives 
of oncoming children. It is not only right for a father to 
have a son, but his son has a right to have him. 

There are a few things he can do better than a mother. 

He can play better with a growing boy. For a short time 
it may be possible for a father to live on a pedestal, from 
which he descends, like Jehovah in the Old Testament, with a 
dictum or a discipline. But a perch is at least uncomfortable, 
and you cannot bring up a child entirely by what you tell 
him about how good you were when you were a boy. An 
old Irishman, chief of police in Philadelphia, left a widower 
with a large family, once told a company of fathers that he 
had never known a child to go wrong in a home where the 
father played with his children for an hour after supper, and 
added, with justifiable satisfaction: "And I've tried it mysilf." 

He can teach him to work. How can a mother teach a 
sizable boy to work? He doesn't love sewing or dish- 
washing and she doesn't know the difiference between a 
spokeshaver and a safety razor. "Wait till father comes 
home and we'll fix it for you," said a boy of only six to his 
mother, in a home where father had discovered that his son 
had other uses for his hands than to keep them clean. 

A father ought to teach his boy how^ to spend money. 
It is a difficult art, as he himself knows. There is an in- 

[120] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

creasing number of men in this country who are working 
themselves to death in order to give their sons a license to 
become spendthrifts. The son is literally from birth his 
father's junior partner, and the father has a unique oppor- 
tunity to make the financial side of this relationship business- 
like from the beginning. 

The father is the one who ought to give his son his edu- 
cation about sex matters. The Institute of which I am 
president received one thousand letters last year from 
mothers — mothers, mind you — asking how they should teach 
the facts and laws of sex to their children, chiefly to their 
sons. This struck me as a commentary on the pusillanimity 
of American fatherhood. In those years especially when a 
lad hears his mother's advice and follows his father's exam- 
ple a father can hardly afiford to sidestep this important 
duty. 

The extent of ignorance concerning the usual facts of 
child life by fathers that has been revealed to me in corre- 
spondence during the past years is such that I would say 
that if those men were as limited in what they call their 
business as they are here, they could not hold a position as 
errand boys. Now for years books on child-raising have 
been just as plentiful, just as explicit and just as cheap as 
those on stock-raising or on scientific management. Why 
don't fathers get intelligent on this great human problem? 

It is too bad to put it upon her, but really a wife has to 
train her husband to be a father. Motherhood is an in- 
stinct, but a man has not much more instinct to be a father 
than he has to be an uncle. Mother has to break him in 
early. She has to explain why the baby is beautiful. She 
must break it to him easily that he is God to his firstborn. 
She must get the children to help father get loose — from his 
sedentary sins, his tired solemnities, his awful omniscience. 
She must demand his best. 

[ 121 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Some parents who find it well-nigh impossible to join 
very much with their children in play in the winter time antic- 
ipate the summer vacation as at least one chance to show 
their humanity to their children. But the mother who has 
retained her childhood and the father who can see some fun 
in sleeping occasionally in a tent in the yard with his son or 
in a social game after dinner by the fireside has taken the 
longest step toward confidence and companionship in the 
deeper things and experiences. During these years at least 
it is as important each day that the parent should take time 
to be happy as to ''take time to be holy." 

Our children should have much of the companionship of 
the wise. The old adage, ''Children should be seen and not 
heard," ought really to be reserved. Children should be both 
seen and heard. Unless they are seen by and see wise 
people, how can they become wise, and unless they can be 
heard how can they have their fallacies exposed? Socrates 
cleared up the minds of young people by asking them appar- 
ently simple but ingenious questions, and, it has been 
suggested, got his reward by clearing up his own mind by 
listening to their answers. We should follow^ Edward Everett 
Hale's advice, and arrange that our children shall talk every 
day with someone wiser than themselves. 

The value of good table talk in both the education and 
management of children is too little recognized. People 
who would scorn to appear in a negligee toilet at table will 
utter conversation that is slipshod, vulgarly gossipy, emptily 
personal or tiresomely complaining. Says Dr. Colin A. 
Scott: "Children who have grown up in homes in which the 
talk ran on large lines and touched on all great interests of 
life will agree that nothing gave them greater pleasure or 
more genuine education. There are homes in which the 
very atmosphere makes for wide knowledge of life, for 
generous aims, for citizenship in the world, as well as in the 

[122] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

locality in which the home stands. Teachers in schools and 
colleges find the widest differences in range of information 
and quality of intelligence in the boys and girls who come to 
them. Some children bring a store of knowledge and sound 
tastes with them; others seem to have had no cultivation of 
any sort, are ignorant of everything save the few subjects 
which they have been compelled to study, and have no per- 
sonal acquaintance with books or art or nature or the large 
affairs of the world. They have absorbed nothing, for there 
has been nothing to absorb; all that they know has been 
poured into them. The fortunate children have grown up in 
association with men and women of general intelligence, 
have heard them talk and lived among their books. 

'There is no educational opportunity in the homes more 
important than the talk at the table. But this educational 
influence must issue from the spirit and interests of the 
parents; it must never wear a pedagogic air and impose a 
schoolroom order on a Hfe which ought to be free, spon- 
taneous and joyful. The home in which the talk is pre- 
arranged to instruct the children would be, not a garden 
where birds and dogs and children play together, but an 
institution in which the inmates live by rule and not instinct. 

"It is not the child of six who sits at the table and Hstens; 
it is a human spirit, eager, curious, wondering, surrounded 
by mysteries, silently taking in what it does not understand 
today, but which will take possession of it next year and be- 
come a torch to light it on its way. It is through association 
with older people that these fructifying ideas come to the 
child; it is through such talk that he finds the world he is to 
possess. 

'The talk of the family ought not, therefore, to be directed 
at him or shaped for him; but it ought to make a place for 
him. If the Balkan situation comes up, let the boy get out 
the atlas and find Bosnia and Bulgaria ; it is quite Hkely that 

[ 123 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

his elders may have forgotten the exact location of these 
countries ; it is even possible that they may never have 
known. . . . 

"Talks on books, plays, pictures, music, may have the same 
quality of a common interest for those who listen as well as 
for those who talk. There are homes in which the informal 
discussion of these matters is a liberal education; and long 
years after, children, who were not taken account of at the 
time, remember phrases and sentences that have been key- 
words in their vocabulary of life." 

The advantages of table talk in child management are 
especially obvious. Ideals or codes of conduct may there be 
discussed so naturally that no child shall feel that he is being 
lectured, while the statement of the family consensus of 
opinion upon such topics has a profound influence upon the 
opinion and action of each individual. The younger child 
follows the lead of those older. The older is warned not tp 
offend the moral sense of those younger. 

Companionship in school tasks is a Httle more difficult 
than it used to be, now that methods of teaching have 
changed, but many parents still manage it; and since schools 
fail in teaching to study more than anything else, the parent 
who can do this not only keeps alongside of the child, but 
performs a very great educational service. 

Companionship in work is essential. True, chores are 
not so numerous in a city house, but if the child is from an 
early period accepted as a junior partner, he may be 
habituated to take some small and regular share in the 
household tasks. Even boys can help in the kitchen, the 
tasks which they perform there being made acceptable to 
themselves and their criticizing playmates as preparatory to 
the cooking and housekeeping of the summer camp. The 
weekly allowance may be regarded as salary for such tasks, 
though acts of special helpfulness should be paid with thanks 

[124] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

and not with money and rewarded by unexpected rather than 
bargained blessings. 

These are the companionships that lead to comradeship of 
ideals. The parent who never plays or works with his child 
is unlikely ever to get very close to the child's real confidence, 
while it is during the play or work that father or mother finds 
the closest intimacies most natural. A very wise head of 
an orphanage used to maintain a photographic dark room, 
simply because the good fellowship of the mutual puttering 
he did there with his boys led to confidential discussion. So 
the joyous companionships of the home lead to the heights 
where the children dream and wish to tell their dreams to 
sympathetic ears. 

An illustration at this point is so much better than a homily 
that it seems worth while to give space to two pictures taken 
from American Motherhood to show the contrast of homes 
where confidence is prohibited and sought, with implied 
results. 

"Where's James?" Mr. Thome's voice was curt and short. 

"Oh, don't ask me," replied Mrs. Thorne querulously, 
setting the supper things hastily on the table, her face hot 
and scowHng with irritation. "I've called and called. Really, 
Henry, you'll have to take that boy in hand. He's on the 
street from morning till bedtime." 

"Doesn't he know it's supper time?" 

"He ought to. I've told him a hundred times if I have 
once that he's to come in at five o'clock." 

"It seems to me — " Mr. Thome's tone grew in irritation 
as he sat down to the table — "that if I'd told a boy twelve 
years' old a hundred times to come in at five o'clock, he'd 
come." 

"What would you have me do?" demanded Mrs. Thorne 
sharply, as she poured the tea. "Should I go out and hunt 
him up? I've called until I'm hoarse." 

[ 125 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

'The trouble is — " Mr. Thorne served his wife to hot rolls 
and creamed potatoes, and cast glances of expectant inquiry 
out of the window — "that a boy in the city hasn't anything 
to do to keep him out of mischief. When I was a boy I had 
chores to do that kept me busy." 

'There are a few things around a place like this," replied 
Mrs. Thorne ironically, "that a boy as big as James might 
do." 

"Why don't you make him do them then?" asked her 
husband sharply. 

"Why don't you?" retorted Mrs. Thorne angrily, pushing 
back her chair, her face flushing still more deeply. 

"I'm too busy earning money to keep him in shoes and 
trousers to see to his bringing up. It seems to me — " 

A slamming of the outer door interrupted him, and a 
boy of twelve, untidy and unwashed, burst into the room. 

"Gee, I'm hungry — " he began, but the stern voice of his 
father interrupted him. 

"Go and wash yourself, young man, before you show your- 
self in here," he commanded. 

The boy slammed out of the room and returned in less 
than five minutes, a visible water mark about his chin and 
with hands still grimy and hair unbrushed. 

"Now see here, my boy — " his father dealt out loud-voiced 
admonition as he served the boy's meal — "you let this be 
the last time you come in to supper after I do. I want you 
to get into this house before dark and see if you can't find 
a few chores to do. Do you hear?" 

The boy nodded sullenly and bolted his food in angry 
silence. 

"Why don't you try to be more like Tom Martin?" 
fretted his mother. "He comes in and helps his mother and 
even sets the table. He — " 

"Tom Martin's mother plays games with him," interrupted 

[126] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

James defensively, "and she reads out loud to him, and she 
lets him have the fellers come in evenings, and makes base- 
ball suits for him and — " 

*'She doesn't play games with him nor read to him every 
night," replied Mrs. Thorne; "for she belongs to a reading 
club and she goes to the theater sometimes — " 

"She lets him have a good time when she does go out," inter- 
rupted James bitterly; "'cause I've been in there. She lets 
him make candy in the kitchen with Molly, and his Aunt 
Maggie comes in to play games with the boys when Tom's 
mother's out. She ain't his truly aunt, but — " 

"She's an old maid that Mrs. Martin gets to come in and 
stay sometimes. But Tom's such a good boy that — " 

"/'^ be good, too, if—" 

"Don't answer back, sir," commanded his father. "If 
you're through your supper, go and get a book and don't 
let me hear any more from you till bedtime." 

The boy stalked sulkily from the room, harboring a sense 
of injustice and anger in his heart. He went into the sitting- 
room, took a book from a littered-up table, drew a chair up 
beneath the high gas hghts and began to read. 

His father followed and took up the evening paper. Sev- 
eral times the boy glanced up from his book toward the 
silent figure, as if he longed for company, a desire for com- 
panionship and confidence in his heart. Too well he knew, 
however, that any attempt on his part would be met with 
a gruff command to silence. 

Mrs. Thorne appeared at the door. "Henry," she said 
querulously, "have you forgotten we have an engagement 
tonight at the Holmes's card party?" 

Mr. Thorne retorted with a remark not complimentary to 
card parties in general and the Holmes's card party in par- 
ticular. James looked up at his mother, a hungry appeal in 
his gray eyes. 

[127] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

"You going out again tonight, mamma?" he asked, a 
quivering wistfulness in his boyish voice. 

"Yes/' she said, the same irritable inflection in her voice; 
"we've promised to go. I hope you're big enough, James, to 
stay at home without your mother. Besides, Nora'll be 
here." 

"Nora!" Former acquaintance with Nora's companionship 
spoke scornfully in James' voice. His face grew hard and he 
took up his book. 

"Come, Henry," called Mrs. Thorne, turning away, and 
Mr. Thorne followed, muttering unpleasant comments upon 
his wife's acceptance of invitations. 

A half hour later they reappeared cloaked and hatted for 
the card party, and Mrs. Thorne kissed her little boy good 
night. 

"Be a good boy," she said, "and go to bed when you've 
finished your story." 

"I wish you wouldn't go, mamma." James leaned his 
twelve-year-old head against his mother's arm. 

"Don't be silly, James. I've promised. You can go and 
sit with Nora if you like." 

"Come on, come on," urged Mr. Thorne impatiently from 
the door. "If you're going anywhere, go along. I hate 
dawdling." 

Mrs. Thorne turned back at the door, her conscience 
troubHng her a little at sight of the lonely little figure beside 
the door. 

They had hardly turned a corner when James went to the 
kitchen door where Nora was washing dishes. 

"Going to have company, Nora?" he asked. 

"Me cousin'll be droppin' in, mebbe," said Nora, flapping 
the dishcloth. 

"Well, you leave the side door unlocked. I'm going out 
for awhile to play with the kids, and if you squeal on me, I'll 

[128] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

squeal on you." And he went out into the street and the 
night to seek for the companionship which was his natural 
right. 

It was near the supper hour in the house across the way. 
Tom Martin came hastily in at the back door, slipped off his 
heavy skating shoes and on the way to the closet where his 
slippers were kept, encountered his mother. 

"Oh, mother," he exclaimed, throwing his arms about her, 
"I'm awfully sorry to be so late, but we got to skating 
a race, Jim Thorne and I, and I forgot. But I remem- 
bered pretty soon and I ran, mother, truly I did, all the 
way." 

"Good boy," said his mother, kissing his forehead and 
hugging him to her. "Mother knows you'll never forget her 
for long. Run and get washed now." 

"I'll see to the furnace first, mother. And — want anything 
at the store?" 

"No, thank you, dear. I'd like a little help about the 
table though, if you've time. Molly's making waffles for 
supper and I'm helping." 

"You bet!" responded Tom, boyishly inelegant, but with a 
splendid look in his clear eyes that sent a thrill of rejoicing 
to the mother's heart. 

He came down presently, clean and brushed, a fresh blouse 
and tie replacing the soiled ones. Then he went about set- 
ting the table deftly and happily, chatting to his mother about 
the skating, about his day at school, what this one had said 
and another had done, until she knew her boy's mind and 
heart as she had always done. 

Presently Mr. Martin came in and greeted his son: 

"Hello, boy," he said. 

"Hello, man," retorted Tom, cheerfully and companion* 
ably affectionate. 

[129] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

"Had a good day?" asked the father as they drew about 
the table. 

''Bully," replied Tom. "Have you?" 

"Are we going to read 'Boy Lincoln' tonight?" asked Tom 
after a little, "or are we going to have a game of Flinch?" 

"This is our night at the reading club, Tommy." Mrs. 
Martin could never refrain from saying "Tommy" when she 
felt especially tender. "Don't you remember?" 

Tommy's face fell. 

"I'd forgotten," he said; "but I'll read or have Jim Thorne 
come over." 

"I don't know what to think about Jim Thorne," said 
Mrs. Martin wdth a puzzled inflection in her voice. "I used 
to think him a fine little fellow, but lately I've heard of sev- 
eral things in which he has deceived his mother and he's 
always on the streets." 

"His home isn't jolly and bright and nice like ours," 
said Tom. "His mother scolds and his father jaws and they 
never play games with him or anything." 

"Perhaps you'd better run over and ask him to come and 
stay an hour," said Mrs. Martin. "Aunt IMaggie will be 
over, and you can make fudge if MoUy'll let you." 

Tom ran blithely away across the street, and both father 
and mother looked after him with happy and thankful 
hearts. 

"He's a good boy," said Mrs. Martin. 

"He's got a good mother," replied her husband, smiling. 

"He's like his father." And Mrs. Martin stretched a hand 
across the table to be grasped lovingly by another bigger 
and browner. 

The story concludes with a description of Tom eagerly 
helping his mother to make ready and bidding her an afifec- 
tionate good-by, conscious that his parents, even when absent 
in body, were still close to him in spirit. That boy, we can 

[ 130 ] 



THE PARENTS ATTITUDE 

see, would grow up in the finest sort of relation to both 
his parents. The "gang" might claim him, the evil or 
neglected chum might for a time lead him somewhat astray, 
but he would ever keep his parents informed of his changing 
ideals, he would never go away from them even in ''the far 
country," and in the end his permanent ideals would be sound 
and strong. Home companionship would be his salvation. 

"1 know a mother," says Mrs. Birney, "who with the ad- 
vent of the first baby entered heartily into the idea that she 
had undertaken a long journey with the most mysteriously 
fascinating and wonderful of companions, who each day 
exacted rare tribute from her patience and self-denial, but 
who in himself was such an ever-increasing source of deHght, 
through his affection, growth and development, that she 
prayed in her soul the journey might last through all eternity. 
It must have been such a mother as this of whom a little 
boy who was playing a 'wishing game' said, 'I wish my 
mamma was my little twin brother, and next I wish we had 
a mamma exactly as she is now.' " 

One thing the child needs especially to learn through his 
companionship with his parents, and that is that they are 
engaging in the same moral experiences as is he. He is not 
alone in having to obey; so must they. He is not alone in 
having disappointments. He is not alone in finding it hard 
to be good. He is not alone in doing and being wrong. 
No child can excuse an excuse from his parents, but he will 
always accept an apology. The parent who is big enough 
sometimes to say "we" instead of "you" when talking to his 
child about his peculiarities or faults has well won his way 
with him. And the student spirit in the parents even in the 
realm of morals awakens the student spirit in the child. 

Fitn£;ss 
As guardians of future kings we ought to be men and 

[ 131 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

women worthy of our great trust. We are engaged not 
merely in a profession, but in a mission. The idea that in- 
tellectual acuteness and a plenitude of devices will suffice to 
enable us to train our children well is a false one. Children 
may not have great reasoning powers, but they have the 
instinct to recognize goodness. There is no way to repre- 
sent goodness to a child but by being good ourselves. The 
child may do as we say; he will certainly do as we do. We 
again must cite Mrs. Allen's word, that "the chief part of a 
child's moral training comes from seeing us try to be good." 
Suggestion is the most potent form of education, and we can 
suggest only by what we are. Of the family of Karl Witte 
we read: "The whole family Hfe was regulated with a view 
to suggesting to the child ideas which, taking root in the 
subconscious region of his mind, would tend soon or late to 
afifect his moral outlook and exercise a lasting influence on 
his conduct. Hasty words, disputes, discussion of unpleasant 
subjects, all these thing were scrupulously avoided. In their 
relations with one another, as with the little serving-maid 
and all who visited the Witte home, the parents displayed 
only those characteristics with which they wished to imbue 
their son. They were unfailingly genial, courteous, consid- 
erate and sympathetic. Over and above all this, they set him 
a constant example of diligence, of that earnest activity which 
is of itself a most forceful form of moral discipline." How 
Japanese children grow to be courteous and docile after be- 
ing, as we would say, "spoiled" by total absence of home 
discipline seems incredible, until we are told that they never 
see discourtesy or inconsiderateness at home. They absorb 
by imitation what we think must be plastered on by means 
of discipline. 

And Dr. Griggs adds: "The child is helped not only by 
what we do, but by what we try to do even when we fail. It 
is possible, fortunately, to teach lessons above the level of 

[132] 



THE PARENT'S ATTITUDE 

what we are in conduct, though not higher than what we 
want to be and strive to be. The ideal we are struggUng 
toward teaches above our halting and imperfect action. Thus 
children tend to imitate not only our conduct but, deeper 
than it, the spirit that inspires our conduct. That is why 
pretense is so futile, and why every attempt to wear a gar- 
ment of virtue merely for effect is apt to lead to an imitation, 
not of the assumed virtue, but of the hypocrisy that inspired 
its assumption, as, for instance, when our behavior is con- 
ventionally proper but with no love behind. Children pierce 
through what we do to what we mean to be and do ; and the 
influence of the ideal toward which we are struggling is in 
the end more powerful than the changing accident of the 
day's life. 

"Thus the true teaching by example is through a kind of 
contagion of the ideal that passes from soul to soul even 
when the ideal is far beyond us. This has always been the 
supreme force in education." 

The task of raising future kings demands a large nature. 
Because we deal with small people, we cannot afford to be 
small ourselves. "The genuine disciplinarian," says Ennis 
Richmond, "is one whom grown-up people would be inclined 
to obey as well as children." All authorities seem to agree 
that a parent can be angry, mistaken, even wrong sometimes, 
but that he can seldom afford to be "grieved" or pettish or 
evidently annoyed. And even when endurance ceases to 
be a virtue and patience is almost gone, if the parent can, as 
it were automatically, remember that every trying situation 
has something funny about it (for he is funny himself when 
the child is not), he will retain his sense of humor, which is 
itself the finest kind of self-control. 

"We," says Mrs. Allen, "are very like the children. We, 
too, love our own way. We, too, are stiff-minded. We 
have our own unseasonable moods and senseless tricks, and, 

I 133] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

moreover, on top of it all, an acquired sense of dignity which 
acts as a bar between us and the children. If we deserve 
their respect, they will give it. We need not concern our- 
selves so much about their behavior toward us as about our 
own toward them. We must treat them with courtesy. 
They are our equals in everything but experience, and we 
must regard ourselves as appointed to give them the results 
of experience quickly, thoroughly and beneficially, often 
rigorously, never roughly nor stupidly." 

Many parents who try to grow morally do not think it 
necessary to grow mentally after their children come. They 
live, as Ellen Key says, "on the capital and interest of an 
education, which perhaps once made them model children, 
but has deprived them of the idea of educating themselves." 
Yet there is no sadder pathos than that of outgrown parents. 
Only by keeping oneself in constant process of growth, 
under the constant influence of the best things in one's own 
age, does one become a parent half-way good enough for 
one's children. The mother who has "neglected everything 
for the children" has often almost neglected her children. 

We ought always to be good, but when we have to disci- 
pline our children, then we ought to be at our best. '"Try 
not to discipline your child," urges Mrs. Allen, "unless you 
are satisfied with your mood. Plrst summon your own best 
state of mind, and then face the child. Your mood will be 
your best ally." The hour when you feel most like giving 
a whipping is the worst one in which to do it, and there is no 
use trying to improve the disposition of a child while you 
are spoiling your own. 



[134] 



CHAPTER X 
THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

Relation to Law 

Turning now to the attitude of the children themselves, 
we find that their responsiveness to government rests upon 
two different bases during this period. Until they are about 
ten years old the respect that they feel is to personal com- 
mands; after that it is respect for law itself. Earl Barnes 
found as the result of careful studies that children under ten 
have very little appreciation of general laws or regula- 
tions, or regard for them. They are most docile however 
to the binding force of personal commands, even where 
the special circumstance would seem to excuse them from 
obedience. 

This is because they have little moral equipment yet, little 
capacity for sorrow and none for remorse. The fact that a 
child seems to be sorry because we are grieved or because it 
is toward night or because he feels homesick is not an excep- 
tion. We mistake in insisting upon forcing children to ex- 
press regret in begging pardon. An artificial emotion is 
always worthless. This is an excellent training for hypocrisy. 
The moral sense is still largely to be evoked. It is for us 
to be reasonable, to be fair, until the child is old enough to 
know reason and fairness in the only way he can come to 
know it, from having seen it lived. 

"This attitude," says Barnes, "begins to change by the time 
the child is ten years old, and changes more rapidly at twelve 
and thirteen. Ideas become clarified; the child not only feels, 
but knows why he feels; he begins to recognize estabHshed 
laws as abstract existences; the punishments he prescribes 

[ 135 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

are less severe, and they take into account in some measure 
the intentions of the culprit. These tendencies increase up to 
sixteen years." 

So until a child is ten years old he turns to us, not for legal 
enactments, but for personal commands. After he is ten, we 
can gradually give him a code. According to this he Vv'ill 
endeavor to live, and when, during adolescence when he 
questions everything, he questions the articles of this code, 
yet his habituation to it will continue as a safeguard and much 
of it will bind him as a life habit. 

It is a sig^nificant period at which the child arrives when 
he begins to realize the majesty of right. Someone has said 
that ''the proper exercise of will might be defined by the word 
'ought.' " And so even before the parent or teacher is fully 
able to reason with a child, the child is satisfied if he is as- 
sured that a certain course is right. 

The conservatism of a child as to that which he has be- 
come convinced is right is both extraordinary and reassuring. 
It may be due partly to dullness, to the time it takes for him 
to interpret or modify a command. It may be partly inertia 
or mental laziness. It may be the fixed effect of ancestral 
inheritance and a steady environment. But it seems to be 
more — it seems to be the tendency of young children to di- 
gest and make their own that which they have continuously 
tasted. This conservative instinct is so enduring that often, 
when a child has been steadily guided to follow out a course 
of conduct to which he is disinclined, his inclination reverses 
and he can hardly be persuaded later that he ever desired the 
opposite. 

These facts as to the child's attitude toward law suggest 
the wisdom of Kirkpatrick's broad statement as to the chang- 
ing factors of education during this period: "Play is the chief 
factor in education during the early years; but gradually 
more and more place is given to Necessity, until she is the 

[136] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

honored director of activity in manhood, or perchance both 
give place to the twin sisters, Doing and Achievement, who 
smile alike on work that is as joyous as play and play that is 
as valuable as work." 

• 
The Artful Dodger 

No matter how genial the attitude of children is toward 
law, their practice often lags far behind. There is a tendency 
to "ease of¥," to delay, to fall behind the requirements. This 
process ofifers a fine opportunity for the imaginative child. 
Sully cites this: "A small boy on receiving from his nurse the 
familiar order, 'Come here !' at once repHed, T can't, nurse, 
I's looking for a flea,' and pretended to be much engrossed 
in the momentous business of hunting for this quarry in the 
blanket of his cot. The little trickster is such a. lover of fun 
that he is pretty certain to betray his ruse in a case like this, 
and our small flea-catcher, we are told, laughed mischiev- 
ously as he proffered his excuse. Such sly fabrications may 
be just as naughty as the uninspired excuses of a stupidly 
sulky child, but it is hard to be quite as much put out by 
them." They soon cease to be amusing, however, and the 
parent finds that he needs to be firm either in letting the 
neglected task bring its own penalty of deprivation or in 
holding the young shirker to strict account. 

In mentioning the conservativeness of children which leads 
them to tend to pursue a habit as if it were a tradition, equal 
mention must be made of the changeableness that comes 
especially with the years of rapid growth. "The child's 
soul," says Dr. Paul Carus, "is a commonwealth of various 
and frequently contradictory tendencies." The mirror-like 
response of the child to impressions marks his susceptibility 
to a variety of reflections and his almost tricky alterations of 
moral sentiment are a valuable form of reflex action. "Wax 
to receive, marble to retain" the child is thus at once capable 

I 137] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

of the whole range of moral susceptibility and dynamic to 
make it an integral part of his own moral furnishing. 

Though the child respects law, he does not love it. He 
thinks it a restraint devised for the restriction of children. 
Sully continues: "So strong and deep-reaching is this 
antagonism to law and its restraints apt to be that the child- 
ish longing to be *big' is, I believe, grounded on the expec- 
tation of liberty. To be big seems to the child more than 
anything else to be rid of all this imposition of commands, 
to be able to do what one likes without interference from 
others." 

So it is not surprising that one of the commonest traits 
with advancing years is 

Obstinacy 

It may take its rise in indolence or as the result of too 
frequent or too severe exactions. It may be a kind of 
strength. The child Hkes to overcome difficulties; we are a 
difficulty which he tries to overcome. Yet, as Berle suggests, 
when children are obstinate they are not necessarily, as peo- 
ple assume, of strong will. They may have very weak wills. 
Their obstinacy may arise from want of interest and ina- 
bility to catch the threads of thought around which interest 
is trained. In such cases an alluring exposition of a better 
way will cause the supposed obstinacy to melt away. Some- 
times real and permanent obstinacy is occasioned by sudden 
or careless interruptions of childish play by adults. These 
are usually unnecessary and harmful. They weaken both 
will-power and perseverance. 

No wonder that a child treated thus grows up not only 
with no ability to persevere, but also stubborn against 
thoughtless interference. 

Obstinacy is sometimes only fear or incapacity. "The 
qhild," says Ellen Key, "repeats a false answer, is threatened 

[138] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

with blows, and again repeats it because he is afraid not to 
say the right thing. He is struck and then answers rightly. 
The paralysis due to fear was treated as an exhibition of a 
refractory will." 

When a child becomes excited either in resistance or in 
fear, he often becomes for a while literally incapacitated 
through mental blindness to accomplish the thing we de- 
sire. Professor William James once gave some very sensi- 
ble advice for such a case. ''When a situation of the kind 
is once fairly developed, and the child is all tense and excited 
inwardly, nineteen times out of twenty it is best to apperceive 
the case as one of neural pathology rather than as one of 
moral culpability. So long as the inhibiting sense of im- 
possibility remains in the child's mind, he will continue 
unable to get beyond the obstacle. The aim of the teacher 
should then be to make him simply forget. Drop the sub- 
ject for the time, divert the mind to something else: then, 
leading the pupil back by some circuitous line of associa- 
tion, spring it on him again before he has time to recognize 
it, and as likely as not he will go over it without any dif- 
ficulty. It is in no other way that we overcome balkiness 
in a horse: we divert his attention, do something to his nose 
or ear, lead him around in a circle, and thus get him over a 
place where flogging would only have made him more 
invincible." 

''But, after all," someone asks, "are there not instances 
when the enlightened will of the adult must prevail and the 
child, wiUingly or unwillingly, must yield?" There are vari- 
ous ways of conquering his obstinacy. In general, it is better 
to do it by a process than through a catastrophe. We may 
or may not be able by terrorizing to secure a particular act 
of submission, but we can hardly expect by such means to 
force the formation of a volition. To accomplish the first 
seems hardly worth the struggle, since it has to be done by 

[139] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

fresh struggles on each new occasion, unless we have been 
so tragically successful as to break the child's will. What 
we are really after, or should be after, is to help, not 
force, the forming of the child's volition. How shall we do 
this? 

As has been suggested, the work is a process. If a child 
has always been treated calmly and reasonably, he is not so 
likely to have insane outbursts. JVe must be careful not to 
spring things on him. If it is necessary to interrupt him, 
explain some pleasant alternative that is before him. Mrs. 
Allen gives the following example of the way to do this : 

"Jack, who is ready to go on a delightful walk, must be 
kept at home because an unknown cousin has come to see 
the family. 'Wait,' says mother, 'do you know who has 
come? It is a very nice cousin that you have never seen. 
He lives out where the cowboys are. So if you put off your 
walk, you will hear all about it.' This, instead of the curt 
information, 'You can't go out. A strange cousin has come. 
Take oft your things.' Some people object that this makes 
obedience too easy and pleasant. A child, they think, should 
obey cheerfully, without asking for reasons. But that is a 
virtue which he will never need when he is grown. Grown 
people are almost never called upon to change their course 
suddenly without any understanding of the reasons. We 
first understand and then act — much against our will and 
desire, it may be, but always for comprehensible cause. 
Children must give prompt obedience if necessary, but there 
is no need of multiplying these uncomfortable occasions." 
So in the matter of asking performance of a duty, there 
is a conciliatory as well as an unconcihatory method. Instead 
of saying, "You must fill the wood-box before you can go 
out," it is quite as easy to say, "Won't you please get me a 
whole boxful of wood before you go? I need it to cook with 
for our supper, and I am going to make something you like!" 

[ 140 ] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

And the difference in the way the box is filled is worth the 
extra trouble, if there is any trouble, in putting it so. 

When the parent finds that the child is actually entering 
into a state of unreasoning excitement, let his own coolness 
continue. Meet temper with firmness, but never with tem- 
per. "Only one gets mad at a time in this house" is the 
motto in one home. The one object now is to restore a sane 
condition. The child may be left by himself for a time to 
cool off; he may be told of some good time that is to follow 
compHance, not as a reward, but as a consoling prospect ; 
sometimes the parent may wisely offer her help in the task; 
in extreme ihstances the child may be put to bed. He will 
find it hard perpetually to resist good humor and courtesy. 
In the end the child should not be the gainer by his obsti- 
nacy. The task must still be done, and perhaps by delay 
he has forfeited some additional pleasure. It has been ad- 
vised by some that other children may be allowed to be 
present to help bring the offender to his senses through 
shame. Mrs. Wiggin has touched on this: 

"Oftentimes he is obdurate when reproved in private for a 
fault, but when brought to the tribunal of the disapproval 
of other children, he is chagrined, repents, and makes atone- 
ment. He is uneasy under the adverse verdict of a large 
company, but the condemnation of one person did not weigh 
with him. It is usually not wise, however, to appeal to pub- 
lic opinion in this way, save on an abstract question, as the 
child loses his self-respect, and becomes degraded in his own 
eyes, if his fault is trumpeted abroad." 

When the rebellion is over and the proper treatment has 
been given, let that definitely close the transaction. Don't 
harp on it afterward. 

There are a few simple devices for forestalhng obstinacy. 
Jacob Abbott advocated a kind of schooling in cheerful 
obedience. "Mary, knowing that the principle of obedience 

[141] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

in the children was extremely weak, and that it could not 
stand any serious test, contrived to bring it into exercise a 
great many times under the lightest possible pressure. She 
called upon them to do a great many things, each of which 
was very easy to do, and gave them many little prohibitions 
which it required a very slight effort of self-denial on their 
part to regard; and she connected agreeable associations in 
their minds with the idea of submission to authority, through 
the interest which she knew they would feel in seeing the 
work of gathering the flowers and making the bouquets go 
systematically and prosperously on, and through the com- 
mendation of their conduct which she expressed at the end." 

Sully suggests that the mother prepare the child some 
time beforehand for a difflcult duty, telling him that she 
expects he will be able and willing to perform it. This is a 
legitimate use of suggestion. He also urges that the child 
be asked some time in advance when in cool blood to promise 
to do the duty cheerfully. When the time arrives the struggle 
is only with himself; his will has already been enlisted on 
the right side. This simple expedient of shifting the time 
in the imagination of the children helps immensely toward 
good will, by giving the will leisure to form itself favorably. 
So a story, particularly one with a spice of humor or a telling 
point, may be related in an impressive way of a supposititious 
situation, which is likely to occur, and then referred to 
pleasantly when such a situation does arrive. The parent 
thus divests his request of all appearance of fault-finding and 
secures for it not merely its ready admission, but a cordial 
welcome for it in their minds. 

One reason for apparent obstinacy is that the young child 
is in the period of 

Individualism 

This period has its value. The child is selfish, and self- 
ishness is not lovable, but how can he regard others until 

[ 142] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE ; 

he has learned properly to regard himself? He must be first 
in order to do. The independence and self-assertiveness that 
go with this are not agreeable to others, but they are needful 
to the child for his self-protection. All the development of 
personal temperament, initiative and self-reliance wait upon 
the maturing of his individualism. 

The individualism of the child consists chiefly in expres- 
sions of his various instincts. Now the child's instincts are 
his race inheritance, the long echo of all the past to enrich 
his present. They are his tendrils, the prophetic reachings- 
forth of his nature to lodgments for his growing powers. 
They are his "vital breath, his native air." Through the 
grasping instinct, active in his little fingers from the first day 
of his life, the fighting instinct, the imitative instinct, the gang 
instinct, and all the rest, he learns his world and himself. The 
instincts have been sadly misunderstood. "They constitute," 
says Dr. T. M. Balliet, "what is known as original sin." "The 
boy," says Gerald Stanley Lee, "could be made into a man 
out of the parts of him that his parents and teachers are try- 
ing to throw away." Instinct is what gives him his avidity 
for life. It is what sends him to bed dressed, so that he can 
be up early for to-morrow. It is what makes him loth 
to go to bed at all, lest he should lose some of the fun that 
is going on in the world while he is asleep. It explains why 
when he is awake he is much of the time in the third heaven, 
and whether in the body or out of the body one cannot tell 
— God knoweth. The boy who stated as the two requisites 
of a good church boys' club "feed and fun" had evidently 
unconsciously summed up the needs of his own period in 
life. Nutriment and joy, especially the joyous use of his 
instincts in wholesome directions — are not these indicated to 
us parents as the two principal rights of a growing child? 

Slowly, however, during this era the child begins to social- 
ize. The ages from ten to seventeen are said to be the 

[143] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

golden years of the "gang period." The child is so sud- 
denly and thoroughly seized by the glamor of his self-chosen 
group that its opinion soon becomes all-prevailing with him. 
This becomes an important factor in government. 

Sociability 

It is a little alarming to discover that the discipline of 
one's own child involves a share in the discipHning of most 
of the children on the street. This is the more difficult 
because we have neither full opportunity nor authority. It 
is hard to be guardian of other people's children without full 
warrant. The parents of the others do not always share 
our ideals or our realization of duty. Then comes a clash- 
ing of the different ideas as to allowances, evenings-out, 
privileges of playing away from home, etc., held by other 
parents and ourselves. 

The whole problem of the gang is discussed in 'The Boy 
Problem," but a few practical suggestions may be given 
here. 

The gang instinct is really the friendship-making instinct. 
Between ten and seventeen comes no doubt the most power- 
ful single influence in the lives of most children. What the 
gang says, thinks and does is to the individual member pub- 
He opinion. The peril of the gang is usually not that it is 
bad, but that it is undecided; it never is sure what it is going 
to do next. To ignore the gang is to let it go its own 
aimless, dangerous way. The gang needs only to be 
chaperoned, to be guided into safety. Parents must enter 
into the gangs to which their children belong. Their supe- 
rior resourcefulness and their kindness will win the confi- 
dence and worship of each member. The following illustration 
from Mrs. Lutes is as good as a treatise: 

"Mother," says twelve-year-old Jack, ''may I bring ten of 
the boys over here tonight? It's a club and — " 

[144] 



THE CHILD'S ATTITUDE 

"No," comes the prompt response. "Fve just got my 
carpets cleaned and all the floors done over and Vm not 
going to have a raft of boys with muddy feet tracking all 
over everywhere. Your father and I are going out and you 
just can't." 

"But, mother—" 

"Don't 'but mother' me. I say 'no.' And don't you go 
gadding off somewhere, either. Last week you were off one 
night and stayed until all hours, and you got a good 
thrashing for it. If you don't want another you stay right 
here." 

"But, mother, I don't want to stay here all alone while the 
boys are having a good time. They'll just go to Jim Blair's 
house if they can't come here, and I want to go too. I 
can't ever have them here. You and father go out and you 
have company and you make more racket — " 

"John Jones, you hush! Do you know who you are talk- 
ing to?" 

"Yes," John agrees bitterly in his heart. He does. He 
is talking to a woman who can refuse him the right to enter- 
tain his friends in his own home, and who is surely and 
steadily driving him to the street and saloon, where con- 
veniences for entertaining are provided. 

That she will some day weep and wail and reproach him 
for lack of filial duty and grieve heartbrokenly for a son 
who has gone to the bad makes no difference. It isn't his 
fault that he is going to the bad. 

"Mother," says Jack Somebody-Else, "I'd like to have the 
'Gang' in tonight if you have no objection. It's quite a 
while since I've had them." 

"Why, certainly, Jack. I was wondering yesterday why 
you didn't have them. Father and I are always glad to see 
the boys. What's the stunt?" 

Jack glances warmly and smilingly into his mother's 

[I4S] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

sympathetic face. It always pleases him to hear her use a 
'*boy-word." 

"WeVe rehearsing, you know, for Robin Hood — " 

"How stupid of me. Of course. You're Alan-a-Dale, 
aren't you?" 

"Yes. Say, Mumsie, s'pose you've got a song, some old 
song such as they used to sing those days?" 

"Somewhere in the attic down under the 'leventy-'lebenth 
bundle of magazines in the northwest corner, is some old 
sheet music, and amongst it is 'Under the Greenwood Tree.' 
S'pose you can find it or shall I?" 

"I can. I wouldn't want you to hunt for it. Will you 
play it for me, Mum?" 

"Dee-Hghted! What would you 'fellers' like for lunch?" 

"Mother!" Jack comes impulsively back from a bound 
toward the attic door. "You're a-a-lalapaloosie. You're 
a brick, Muddie. I wish more of the fellers had a mother 
like you. Some of 'em won't even let the kids invite the 
Gang." 

"I know," mother nods, comprehendingly, "but they don't 
understand. It's your home, Jackie, you know, just as much 
as it is ours. And you do your share toward making it a 
home just as must as we do; so, — ^why not?" 



[146] 



CHAPTER XI 
OBEDIENCE 

Turning now from the traits of parent and child, let us 
consider one of the chief purposes of government, which is 
obedience. 

Let us fix in our mind for all time that obedience is 
something that is for the sake of children and not of parents. 
It is not our right; it is the child's protection. We happen 
to have more wisdom; it is to be put at the child's disposal. 

'The traditional and almost invariable attitude of the adult 
toward the child," says Patterson DuBois, "is one of absolute 
possession, unlimited right and infallible judgment in all 
that pertains to the child's welfare. It shows itself in the 
lust of authority, the indulgence in the habit of command, a 
craze for 'obedience,' and a desire to be thorough in the 
practice — rather than the science — of punishing. As over 
against all this, the parent ought to recognize himself as sent 
to the child, rather than as having the child sent to him." 

''Does it matter in the very least," says Ennis Richmond, 
"whether a child obeys us, except in so far as we stand for 
the time (that is, while the child is quite young, not yet 
arrived — as we say — at years of discretion) between the 
child and a rule which is everlasting, dealing out to its un- 
developed mind this universal rule in fragments for its im- 
mature digestion?" 

Having assumed the right to guide and be trusted, we 
must, in order to maintain it, wield it without indecision. 
Mrs. Allen urges: Never say "I'll see" or "maybe." Say 
either "yes" or "no," or "I cannot decide so quickly. Come to 
me at such and such a time and I will tell you." Never be 

[147] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

indecisive. Let your yea be yea and your nay, nay. Of 
course a perfect obedience forbids teasing the mother to 
change her mind. If once, only once, she yields a forbidden 
point, and the child, with its abnormal keenness, sees it, she 
is lost. From that time on her yea is no longer yea and her 
nay, nay, but both are doubtful quantities, to be disputed. 
It is infinitely better not to give a command than to let the 
child evade it. When she says even a small thing must not 
be, she must stick to it. If it happens that the question 
turns on a second piece of cake, and she says *'No more 
today," and then says later on, ''Well, just this once, but 
next time do not ask," she is weakly giving up the whole 
situation, and barring the Angel of Peace forever from her 
home. 

This does not mean that the mother will never change her 
mind, but there is a difference which any child of parts can 
see between changing one's mind for a whine and for a 
reason. The mother who freely gives a hearing to new 
facts and modifies her commands accordingly holds the trust 
of a child better than the one who simply squats in her ob- 
stinacy. Ernest H. Abbott gives the following illustration: 

**The punishment which regularly follows is announced. 
It then transpires that what seemed disobedience was really 
misunderstanding. What can be done? Since the maternal 
court does not crave infallibility, the error in sentence is 
acknowledged. So far from impairing confidence in the 
court, this proceeding actually tends to buttress it. The 
next time an adverse judgment is declared and sentence is 
inflicted, the culprit, even if he believes himself guiltless, 
will, if he thinks about it at all, suspect that the judge is 
attempting, not to preserve her dignity, but honestly to ad- 
minister justice." 

The question is asked as to whether reasons should be 
given a child when requiring obedience of him. With very 

[148] 



OBEDIENCE 

little children, evidently not. We cannot reason with a baby ; 
we must use our reason for him. Evidently, too, reasons 
should never be given as an inducement to obey a command. 
In customary matters demand immediate implicit obedience. 
Never reason with a child when he is in an unreasoning mood 
or is biased by the pressure of desire. In novel circum- 
stances it is often possible to explain before giving a com- 
mand, but never wise to argue after giving it. Be sure that 
the child understands the order, if not the reason for it. 
One experienced mother insists that her children always 
shall look her in the eye when she gives a command. Then 
take the ground and ask the child to take it that since you 
have been right in a hundred cases in asking him to obey, 
it stands to reason that you are right now, even if he cannot 
yet see why. Sometimes the crisis is so important that you 
are grateful indeed that you have been able successfully to 
maintain discipline. Edward Everett Hale remarked half- 
humorously in one of his extravagant moments: "It has 
been well said that the ferocity of infancy is such that, were 
its strength equal to its will, it would long ago have exter- 
minated the human race. This is true. And it is to be re- 
marked, also, that the strength of infancy, and of boyhood 
and girlhood, is very great. Thus is it that, unless some 
strict rules are laid down for limiting its use and the places 
of its exhibition, and kept after they are laid down, the death 
of parents, and of all persons who have passed the age of 
childhood, may be expected at any moment." Perhaps a 
question of health is involved, or of morals, or some other 
really serious thing, and the growing boy or girl is quite 
sure the parents are wrong, and will not be convinced by 
the most careful, patient reasoning and explanation; such 
things do happen. Then, after all is said, if the father and 
mother are certain of the wisdom of their course, the child, 
not the parents, must yield. Once in a long time it is best 

[149] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

to let the child have his own way and teach him by suffering 
that he is wrong; but usually this is too costly, and it is 
better to say firmly, "You must abide by my decision; I 
am sure in this case I am right, and when you are older 
you will see that it was so." Then the child will show 
whether, after all, his training in obedience has been worth 
while. If he submits with an underlying belief in his parents 
in spite of his disappointment, the day is won; it has saved 
both the child and the day from disaster, 

A good example of a reassurable way of requiring obedi- 
ence is by means of the story method. Jacob Abbott em- 
ployed this method frequently: 

"And so you thought you had good reasons for disobey- 
ing me," rejoined George. "Yes," said Egbert, triumph- 
antly. "That is just it," said George. "You are willing to 
obey, except when you think you have good reasons for 
disobeying, and then you disobey. That's the way a great 
many boys do, and that reminds me of the story I was going 
to tell you. It is about some soldiers." 

George then told Egbert a long story about a colonel who 
sent a captain with a company of men on a secret expedi- 
tion with specific orders. The captain disobeyed the orders 
and crossed a stream with his force when he had been di- 
rected to remain on the hither side of it, thinking himself 
that it would be better to cross; and in consequence he and 
all his force were captured by the enemy, who were lying 
in ambush near by, as the colonel knew, though the captain 
did not. George concluded his story with some very forci- 
ble remarks, showing, in a manner adapted to Egbert's state 
of mental development, how essential it was to the character 
of a good soldier that he should obey implicitly all the com- 
mands of his superior, without even presuming to disregard 
them on the ground of seeing good reason for doing so. 

The grandson of Jacob Abbott, Ernest Hamlin Abbott, 

[150] 



: OBEDIENCE 

has written as sensibly as his ancestor on home training of 
children. He recommends a similar use of the story and 
of co-operation. 

"A small boy is well acquainted with the story of the 
Israelites in Egypt. He is not overburdened with a sense 
of moral responsibility. One day, when he was dawdHng 
over his task of changing his shoes and stockings, it was 
suggested that his father be an Egyptian and he be an 
Israelitish slave. He joyfully acquiesced. His father took 
the tip of a bamboo fishing rod as a badge of authority and 
stood by. In a few moments the boy was dawdling. A 
light rap over the shins recalled him to his duty. There was 
no complaint; for he knew it was the business of the over- 
seer to keep the slave at his task. His shoes and stockings 
were changed in a very much shorter time than was cus- 
tomary; and he contemplated his finished work with satis- 
faction. A few days later, when he had a similar task to 
perform, he proposed of his own accord a repetition of the 
performance." 

The art of securing obedience promptly often invites a 
process of treatment. A child disHkes to put away his play- 
things, and rebels about minding. The mother, in an ex- 
ample furnished by Ernest Abbott, gives all the children 
warning that in fifteen minutes all the playthings must be 
put away. The others begin at once to get ready. Eric 
goes on playing. A second time she gives him a quiet 
reminder. A third time sounds the authoritative voice. "In 
three minutes it will be a quarter past four. I shall want 
you then to begin to wash and dress for a drive. Eric, I 
am afraid you won't be able to go with us; your blocks are 
not put away." She might, of course, justly tell him then 
and there that he will not be allowed to go; she chooses, 
however, the better way, and lets him wrestle with the situ- 
tion. "You had better not stop to cry," she warns him: 

[151] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

*'there is no time to waste.'* In fractious misery he hur- 
riedly begins his belated task. His will, so far from being 
broken or weakened, is actually stiffened; but it is now en- 
listed on the side of authority. The others — not a whit more 
virtuous, by the way, but only more sagacious — are half 
dressed before he has put his blocks in order. If he fails to 
overtake them, he will stand disconsolate, abject, perhaps 
tempestuous, and watch them depart. He has had his way, 
but he has won no victory; he has simply learned the cost 
of wilfulness. If he succeeds in overtaking them, he will 
not have lost his lesson. His mother, it is true, will not 
exactly have had her way; but she reckons that no loss, as 
her way was not her end; she will have enUsted his will. 
The victory which the boy will haA^e won is not over her. 
The only antagonist he has had is himself. Because of her 
respect for him, he will now have a new respect for himself 
and for her. He is on the road to acquiring the will to 
obey. 



[152] 



CHAPTER XII 

METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 
Let us now consider some of the methods of governing 
children of public school age. 

Suggestion 
Suggestion is effective with children because they do not 
themselves have a very great stock of ideas. They wel- 
come adult contributions. It is especially successful in ex- 
treme youth because children then deeply feel a sense of 
dependence upon adults. The skilful mother often so ingen- 
iously predates her suggestions that the child proceeds, as 
does the hypnotized individual, to perform them at the in- 
dicated time. ''Father will be tired when he comes home 
tonight. Shall we not surprise him by having the ashes all 
carried out and the cellar cleaned?" "How thoughtful you 
would be if you would be careful not to disturb Mary this 
evening ; she is having such a hard time with her geometry." 
"I wonder if I could trust you to get lunch alone tomorrow 
when I have to be down town?" Thus the sly parent 
prepares the way for willing, effective compliance, some- 
times with a great show of secrecy, sometimes with a gentle 
plea, always with a loving expectancy. 

Explanation 
This is the appeal to reason. Though not to be used as 
an inducement to obedience, it makes obedience heartier and 
in the end it makes it more effective. A child of parts 
ought to execute commands more successfully than a stupid 
or instructed one. If we accustom a child to obey without 

[ 153 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

knowing why we train him to act all his life without fore- 
thought. Mental training should aid moral training. 

"One sometimes grows tired," says Mrs. Lutes, "of the 
everlasting 'why?' and 'what for?' of childhood, but how else 
is the child to grow? He is new to this world of multitu- 
dinous things; he is a creature gifted with reasoning power 
and a mind that demands consistence between words and 
deeds. He wants to know zvliy he is told to do thus and so 
or not to do thus and so. He feels the injustice of being 
told to perform acts as an automaton would. He becomes 
discouraged. His mental activities are not called into ac- 
count and he grows sluggish. His movements become 
mechanical and he has no initiative, no power to think for 
himself or to lay out for himself a course of action. He has 
continually to be told 'what to do next.' He has to be 
entertained, amused, told when to move and when not to. 
Then the parents and teachers call him 'stupid,' 'dull' and 
even those who are responsible for his stupidity chide him 
for it." 

A better way to make clear to a boy or girl the ungra- 
ciousness or uncouthness of his conduct than reproach is a 
dispassionate explanation of it. Mrs. Allen suggests this: 
"She said sometimes to her little boy, after visitors had left 
the parlor, 'now, dear, I am going to be your httle girl and 
you are going to be my papa; and we will play that a 
gentleman has come in to see you, and I will show you 
exactly how you have been behaving during the call of my 
friends, and you can see if you would not feel very sorry 
to have a little child behave so.' " 

Persuasion 
This is the appeal to afifection or kindness. Though usually 
valid, it must be used with caution. A mother may in 
emergencies use her headache as a plea for special consid- 

[154] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

eration, but the use of feebleness as a regular appeal is 
subversive of authority and tends to evoke a contemptuous 
pity from the child. 

A method of indirect persuasion is that of praise. Some 
parents, in their fear lest they spoil their children by re- 
wards of flattery, withhold from them even earnest expres- 
sions of satisfaction. ''When Mary," says Jacob Abbott, 
"greatly interested in what for the moment she is doing, 
delays her coming, she says, 'You ought to come at once, 
Mary, when I call you, and not make me wait in this way.' 
In the cases when Mary did come at once, she had said 
nothing." Now there is evidently a difference between a 
compensation agreed upon beforehand, of the nature of 
payment for a service rendered, and a natural expression of 
the happiness felt by her mother in the good conduct of 
her child. And so Mr. Abbott, who did not believe in ex- 
traneous bargained-for rewards, urges a surprise like this: 
"You remember when I went to the village to-day I left you 
in the yard and said that you must not go out of the gate, 
and you obeyed. Perhaps you would have liked to go out 
into the road and play there, but you would not go because 
I had forbidden it. I am very glad that you obeyed. I 
thought of you when I was in the village, and I thought you 
would obey me. I felt quite safe about you. If you had been 
disobedient children, I should have felt uneasy and anxious. 
But I felt safe. When I had finished my shopping, I 
thought I would buy you some bonbons, and here they are. 
You can go and sit down together on the carpet and divide 
them. Mary can choose one, and then Jane; then Mary, and 
then Jane again; and so on until they are all chosen." 

Diversion 
"I don't think we seem very happy; let's sing something," 
suggests the alert kindergartner on some muggy morning 

[155] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

when everybody seems quarrelsome. There is a good hint 
for the mother. It is usually possible to divert the gathering 
storms of obstinacy, the impossible request, the hurtful cause 
of action. Such diversions can usually be pleasant and 
sportive, but occasionally they need to be startling. St. John 
makes a suggestion for handling temper, 'Svith reasons 
annexed." 

''With some hesitation, lest it be misunderstood or mis- 
applied, another prescription is ofifered. Sometimes, when a 
child is in the midst of one of those distressing outbursts 
of rage, he may be brought out of it by an unexpected dash 
of water in his face. This is not a punishment in any sense. 
Its efifect is to substitute intense surprise, with perhaps a 
small element of fear, for the anger. The physical shock 
is enough to do this, and in ordinary cases is far less harm- 
ful than prolonged anger. It is the method of diversion 
apphed in a heroic way. Usually by the time the water is 
wiped away from the eyes and face the child rushes to his 
mother's arms and, after a few tears, falls asleep." 

It is generally agreed that the golden age of habit-form- 
ing falls in this period. So one of the most permanently 
lasting methods to use now is that of 

Drill 

or habituation. Psychologists speak of the brain as contain- 
ing the lower levels of habit and the higher ones of volition, 
and urge the training of all the lower levels to right courses 
before the twelfth year. It is well known that correct table 
habits and minor social usages are learned and made auto- 
matic with great difficulty any later. We must start so early 
about these things that the young people when they have 
grown up will never remember when they acquired them. 

Having learned all of good behavior that the race can 
teach, "they can spend their own full manhood strength in 

[156] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

discovering new nobilities of conduct. So the prophecy of 
the young Hfe may be fulfilled and its potentiality become a 
reality of service." Refinement, considerateness, and even 
religious ceremonies may be so thoroughly absorbed now 
that such habits can never be easily broken, and when later 
any of them are temporarily deserted or disowned the 
tendency will yet be to come back to them and rebuild the 
old nests with a new good will and reinvest old formularies 
with fresh and intelligent meaning. Thus we use the seven 
full years of plenty for any period of spiritual famine that 
may follow. 

This is the period when a mild imitation of military dis- 
cipline is delightfully effective. Children enjoy playing they 
are soldiers, they take a keen delight in being put through 
simple and regular evolutions such as falling into line and 
taking turn in privileges, and they may be taught most of 
the physical habits and some of the more solid virtues 
through the stories of good soldiers and by the imitation of 
them. An illustration of the method was given in Jacob 
Abbott's story under the caption ''Obedience." 

The natural disorderliness of children is supposed to be 
antagonistic to habituation, but it can be much lessened 
where the home has conveniences which make orderliness 
and neatness easy. Where the clothes closet has low hooks, 
where the playroom has bins on the floor instead of high 
shelves, where there is an initialed towel in the bath room 
for each child, where there is a box of rubbers in the cellar, 
the necessity of "picking up after the children" obviously 
becomes minimized. 

Regularity makes the home life as comfortable to the par- 
ent as to the child, chiefly because it spreads the discipline 
over a vast space of time instead of centering it chiefly in 
collisions. 

The question is voiced by Griggs which has been asked 

[157] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

by others : **In many things the right standard for the adult 
differs somewhat from that appHcable to the child. Shall 
the adult follow the standard that is suitable for children, 
or shall he follow his own and seek to make the child under- 
stand the difference? In general, I think the latter. Cer- 
tain things to eat are healthful for the parent, but injurious 
to the child. It is not best to give them up, nor to exclude 
the child from the table when they are upon it, but to accus- 
tom him from the beginning to recognize that as a child he 
must forego certain pleasures which he may enjoy in ma- 
turity. In the extreme case all must admit this principle: 
surely there is no reason why the parent should go to bed 
at seven or the child sit up until eleven to bring the two 
standards of behavior together." 

Griggs answers a more difficult aspect of the question, we 
think wisely. 

'The question becomes difficult, however, just in that 
margin of our behavior where habits which are relatively 
non-moral so easily slip over into what is positively harm- 
ful. Smoking is perhaps the best example. All physicians 
are agreed that the habit of smoking is injurious to a grow- 
ing child or youth. Many physicians hold, however, that 
smoking, kept rigidly within Hmits, and used as a means of 
relaxation and not as a stimulant to work, is not appreciably 
injurious to an adult, and may add greatly to the pleasure 
of social intercourse. What, then, should be the attitude 
of a father or schoolmaster in this connection? Should he 
renounce the habit as setting an example he does not wish 
his boys to imitate, even though he believes it entirely right 
for himself; or should he continue to live in his own con- 
viction, and trust to making the children understand the dif- 
ference in standard for youth and maturity? I believe the 
main key to the solution is this: Is the father or teacher 
convinced that the habit is one he would be glad to have his 

[158] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

boys acquire in maturity just as he practices it? If this 
question can truthfully be answered affirmatively there is no 
direct reason for foregoing the habit; but if the father or 
teacher has a half-confessed sense that he would answer the 
question negatively, it means he is not really living to his own 
highest standard and would better turn around. 

'Temperance is always harder than abstinence, and is usually 
better. Life means a sane balance of activities; and an example 
of harmonious self-control, putting everything in its place, 
may be far more effective than one of asceticism assumed for 
didactic purposes. There is a further corrective principle, 
however. Where one man errs in exaggerated self-denial, a 
dozen sink into the slough of self-indulgence. Sensualism 
and asceticism may be equally failure, but the former is the 
common danger. Especially is this true where the mastery 
of material conditions is such that desires can be easily grati- 
fied and there is little need of struggle. Then asceticism 
becomes a sound instrument of education, and some measure 
of even unnecessary renunciation is an effective element of 
moral discipHne. There is great need to teach this truth to 
children in well-to-do families in these days; and the teach- 
ing by example is more effective than any other." 

Much better than negative deprivation or other punish- 
ment is the positive treatment, of occupation. 

Activity 

When, as some one has said, children are no longer boxed 
on their ears, but are given magnifying glasses and photo- 
graphic cameras to increase their capacity for life and for 
loving it, we not only have better-trained children, but more 
capable ones. 

"Just the reverse of this system rules today," says Ellen 
Key. ''Mothers learn their children's lessons, invent plays 
for them, arrange their rooms for them, read their story 

1 159] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

books for them, arrange their rooms after them, pick up 
what they have let fall, put in order the things they have left 
in confusion, and in this and in other ways, by protective 
pampering and attention, their desire for work, their endur- 
ance, the gifts of invention and imagination, quaHties proper 
to the child become weak and passive." And Mrs. Allen 
adds: 'The child who constantly asks 'What shall I do?' or 
who is constantly without occupation, is he whose available 
occupations have become too easy for him, and who is not 
bred by experience into the knowledge that there is sur- 
passing interest in doing what is creative and a little 
difficult." 

It is an encouraging fact that it is the brightest and most 
difficult children who respond most vigorously to methods 
of activity. It is these original natures who often are badly 
treated at home as well as at school. Some parents seem 
to be prejudiced against the appearance of initiative in their 
offspring. It is now believed that the discouragement of the 
curiosity instinct, which shows itself early in the desire to 
grasp everything in the fingers and later in the desire to 
experiment and take things apart, does more to cripple 
talent than any other of our mistaken courses of conduct. 
The method of activity implies simple and strong clothes 
in which the young people can play freely, play materials 
with good tools, rather than ready-made toys, a regimen of 
work and helpfulness, and a coeval development of the sense 
of proprietorship with respect for the property of others. 



[i6o] 



CHAPTER XIII 
GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

It would seem that if the problems of child government 
were treated preventively, as we have been indicating, there 
would be little need of treating them by punishment. If we 
begin right, we shall not need to proceed by penalties. But, 
as Jacob Abbott says: "This is the way to begin; but you 
cannot begin unless you are at the beginning. If your chil- 
dren are partly grown, and you find that they are not under 
your command, the difficulty is much greater. The princi- 
ples- which should govern the management are the same, 
but they cannot be appHed by means so gentle." 

Often the need of punishment arises because of our own 
fault. "The child," says Mrs. Allen, "is allowed his own 
sweet will for two or three years of his life, possibly longer, 
and then all of a sudden, when disobedience and lawlessness 
is no longer cunning, he is suddenly told not to do thus and 
so and is bruised upon the body, beaten and hurt for doing 
the very thing he has been allowed to do with applause," 

Punishment, though sometimes necessary and apparently 
effective, is always, to a degree, artificial. "It can never 
avoid being an obtrusion between the deed and the real 
reason for not doing it." It has to be partially based upon 
the false doctrine that a fault may be atoned for by sufferings 
that are not directly connected with the fault. Punishments 
irritate; they stir up rebellion or a sense of injustice. If they 
subdue, they tend to maim the will. Our aim should be to 
cause the punishments to be as natural — that is, as imitative 
of the proper result of the fault — as possible. For example, 
we deprive a child of his dessert if he dawdles over his meat, 

[i6i] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

or put him by himself if he disturbs others by noise. The 
parallel danger that a fixed punishment may lose its effec- 
tiveness after its rigor is known (just as the boy who knows 
he will get a whipping for an offense decides that the fun is 
worth the pam) should suggest to us that it is often well to 
state the fact but leave the nature of the threatened punish- 
ment very much of a mystery. To do this also gives the 
parent leisure to ''make the punishment fit the crime." Yet 
threats should be used sparingly. The child knows full well 
that the "next time" is Hkely never to come. At most its 
coming is a negligible chance. The only proper threat is a 
promise made just once, after other methods have failed, as 
a fair warning that one more offense of the kind stated will 
meet with an untold but suitable retribution. It is the infre- 
quent, final appeal, which can be so stated that it shall not be 
so much an arousement of fear as a challenge of the bravest 
effort on the part of the child. 

The rationale of punishment was discussed very fully in the 
earlier part of this book. The matter may be reviewed here. 

The purpose of punishment is not retaliation, the wreak- 
ing of parental anger, satisfaction to the neighbors or even 
"giving the child what he deserves." Punishment is a rig- 
orous kind of teaching, devised to be as helpful as possible 
"to enable the child," to use Ellen Key's phrase, "to over- 
come by self-formed purpose or mastery his desire to repeat 
the offense." It is not only for stopping a course of conduct, 
but for altering a course of desire. It is not to weaken, but 
to strengthen the child. Miss Frances E. Willard used to 
say that her mother always tried to make out that she. Miss 
Willard, wanted to be good and true. "We never," says G. 
Stanley Hall, "punish but a part of a child's nature. He has 
lied, but he is not a liar, and we deal only with the special 
act and must love all the rest of him." 

Such a purpose leaves small room at this period for cor- 

[162] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

poral punishment. Corporal punishment never created a 
love of virtue. It appeals to a base motive and therefore 
does not change desire unless in weak-willed children 
whose desires and wills are not only altered thereby, 
but weakened. As a form of teaching, it substitutes a result 
for the conduct that has no relation to the act itself. To 
whip a child for going near the fire teaches him that fire 
whips, when really it burns. To whip him for crying not only 
teaches him that crying whips, but prevents us from discov- 
ering the real cause of his crying. It is indiscriminate and 
therefore clumsy. Corporal punishment was long ago 
admirably described by Comenius, who compared an edu- 
cator using this method with a musician striking a badly- 
tuned instrument with his fist, instead of using his ears and 
his hands to put it in tune. Corporal punishment is so easy 
that it tempts the parent to continue the method, and this 
prevents his using a rational one, and so stupefies the child 
that at length he does not know enough to respond to any 
other. Where the child is not embruted thereby, we do not 
know what less noticeable but permanent wrong we are doing 
his soul. 'The adult," says Ellen Key, "laughs or smiles 
in remembering the punishments and other things which 
caused him in his childhood anxious days or nights, which 
produced the silent torture of the child's heart, infinite 
despondency, burning indignation, lonely fears, outraged 
sense of justice, the terrible creations of his imagination, his 
absurd shame, his unsatisfied thirst for joy, freedom and ten- 
derness. Lacking these beneficent memories, adults con- 
stantly repeat the crime of destroying the childhood of the 
new generation." Surely as soon as a child can remember 
a blow, he is too old to receive it. 

It is not safe to generalize about corporal punishment. 
Ernest H. Abbott uses the following illustration to prove this: 
"In a household there are three children. One, sensitive 

[ 163 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

to physical pain, shrivels and warps at the very prospect of it; 
a second is deterred from no act by the fear of it, and is 
altered not a whit by the memory of it; the third seems to 
find in it a comforting sense of being mastered at those times 
when he is out of sorts with himself, and responds to it with 
renewed affection and restored sweetness of temper. For 
the mother of that trio academic discussions on corporal pun- 
ishment are not only uninteresting — they are positively 
irritating. She has paid her children the decent respect of 
considering their temperaments." 

Yet even the child who seems to be comforted by a whip- 
ping ought not to have one if he conceives it as a sort of 
accepted atonement for an offense which he had not repaired 
or regards as blameless any misdeed in which he was not 
caught. 

Edward Howard Griggs has summed up well the general 
program for corrective discipline. ''It should aim solely at 
the eradication of the fault and the establishment of moral 
health in the child. (2) It should utilize punishmxcnts that are 
as natural as possible, logically flowing from the fault and 
therefore teaching respect for the laws of life and prudence 
in the presence of the rigorous limitations Nature sets to 
human action. (3) It should enforce the discipline that gives 
self-control and the power to resist wrong desire. (4) It 
should awaken love and pursuit of the virtue of which the 
fault is the distortion or negation. Yet, when all is said, the 
prescription in every case must be individual; and we must 
never forget, as Arthur Giles says in the best sentence of his 
little book on Moral Pathology, that *In moral, as in medical 
pathology, the patient, and not the disease, must be treated.' " 

If punishment is intended to help the child forsake the 
fault and love virtue, then it should, so far as possible, be 
co-operative in character. The worst effect of corporal 
punishment is that usually, because of the anger either of 

[164] 



GOVERNMENT BY PUNISHMENT 

parent or child or both, the parent appears to be the child's 
antagonist, when he most needs him as a friend. It seems 
to be a prerequisite to such punishment that the child should 
be talked with seriously until he so clearly discerns the na- 
ture of the offense that he shall be able to 7iame it and to agree 
upon an appropriate penalty and at length accept it cheerfully 
as self-imposed. 

The element of choice, which is so important an element 
of will-training, may exist even in punishments, as we have 
already noticed. Let us grant, for example, that a child has 
a right to cry if he wants to, but he must choose whether 
he will cease or stop annoying his family by doing it in retire- 
ment. He may not be forcibly prevented from breaking his 
brother's toys, but he may be told in advance that he will 
have the option of paying for them. Dr. Reeder advises, 
from his experience in an orphanage, a system of cash re- 
sponsibility in the shape of fines. Such an arrangement gives 
the child something to do rather than simply having some- 
thing done to him. It lays upon the child a responsibility 
for his own deed. In earning money to pay his fine, he pun- 
ishes himself. In his orphanage he keeps a book account of 
fines, and they stand on record until paid. A fine may not be 
paid for many weeks or months after it has been imposed, 
but the very fact that there is a responsibihty on record, 
which must be met, exerts a wholesome and restraining in- 
fluence over the child. 

It seems to be acknowledged that punishments should 
almost invariably be private. Not only is public admonition 
tiresome to adults present and unwholesome to self-righteous 
brothers and sisters who may be looking on, but it is not 
good for the culprit himself. As for punishing that is wit- 
nessed by any outside the family circle, pride of clan at least 
should prevent such exercise, even though we be sorely 
tempted. The only exception that occurs to the writer is the 

[165] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

one where it may be possible to mass the gang-spirit, which 
to the child is pubHc opinion (usually in some abstract man- 
ner), against the child whose tendency is wrong. 



[i66] 



CHAPTER XIV 

MORE METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 
Choice the Successor of Obedience 

Obedience is a virtue whose value is easily exaggerated. 
"A timid child," Ennis Richmond reminds us, ''is naturally an 
'obedient' child; just as a courageous child may be naturally 
a 'disobedient' one. Obedience to ourselves is not a virtue 
in a child if the obedience ends with ourselves; it is a con- 
venience to us, and if properly used, a most useful weapon 
in our hand when we set out to fight evil in company with 
the child we are guiding; but that is all it is, and a child who 
is what is so often called an 'obedient' child is just as likely 
to be obedient to the person who counsels wrongly as to the 
person who counsels rightly, if he has learnt to render 
obedience to the person instead of to the principle behind 
the person." 

Mrs. Oilman has a clever essay in which she says that to 
train a child to unthinking, unquestioning obedience is to 
make him absolutely valueless as a citizen. He will never 
initiate, but will follow where others lead. He will be but a 
half-developed being, devoid of individuality and independ- 
ence. Obedience should be considered as only a temporary 
thing, for the attitude of infallibility that parents assume must 
sooner or later be abandoned; it is merely the training of 
the children, not bHnd obedience in itself, that is the aim. 
The power of securing obedience invariably lessens as chil- 
dren grow older, and when they are stronger than we it 
ceases. Yet how many of us are content to depend upon it 
exclusively in our treatment of children ! Outside the home 
the child is learning at school and play to use his own mind 

[167] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

to think and to decide for himself, and we cannot and would 
not prevent him doing so in the home circle. As soon as 
possible then we ought to have our children do what we tell 
them, not because we can compel them, but because they 
know why we give the order. Ennis Richmond explains 
this: 

"We give a child an order — any order will do — we say, for 
instance, 'You must be punctual for meals,' and we can (more 
or less) compel the child to be at the table at a certain time. 
But having done that, what next, if we are im.bued with the 
spirit, so common to us, that a child ought to obey us because 
we are older, because we 'know better,' because we resent 
in him any opposition to this order, any opinion of his on the 
matter? The child comes to table, but zvhy does he do so? 
Because we choose, or because he chooses? If the former, 
what have we done for the character of his 'future man?' We 
are insisting upon a practice which may or may not become 
a habit, but are we supplying him with any good ground for 
the obeying of any future rule? Above all, are we getting 
him into touch with the universal and immortal law of which 
our little rule ought to be the type? Surely not. But if, on 
the contrary, the child obeys us because he chooses, have we 
not touched his mind, his reason; have we not taught him 
to look through the rule to the reason of the rule and given 
him some beginning of an enduring trust in Law?'' 

It is indeed surprising how early a child exhibits choice 
and defends his right to choice. Just as gradually and just as 
fast as he can make choices with some reasonableness and 
with little personal hazard, we ought to encourage him to do 
so. For the ultimate goal of government is 

Will-training 
Training the child's will is simply training the power to 
make right choices. Truly it is said, "The deliberate T Will' 

r i68 1 



MORE METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

is the basis of a man's character, and the '1 WilP of the crises 
in Hfe is being made by the 'I Will' of each day." In other 
words, the cumulative effect of will habits is tremendous. 
The training of this ruling power should begin, however, be- 
fore the child is old enough to deliberate, while he is still the 
creature of sensation and impulse. 

A half century ago Jacob Abbott told us that ''the chief 
end and aim of the parental relation, as designed by the 
author of nature, may be considered as comprised, it would 
seem in these two objects, namely: first, the support of the 
child by the strength of his parents during the period neces- 
sary for the development of his strength, and secondly, his 
guidance and direction by their reason during the develop- 
ment of his reason." 

In directing the reason of a child to right choices, our 
whole aim must be to help him toward an independently 
positive attitude toward life. Accurately enough does Ellen 
Key state the common situation when she says: 

"We teach the new souls not to steal, not to lie, to save 
their clothes, to learn their lessons, to economize their money, 
to obey commands, not to contradict older people, say their 
prayers, to fight occasionally in order to be strong. But who 
teaches the new souls to choose for themselves the path they 
must tread? W^ho thinks that the desire for this path of 
their own can be so profound that a hard or even mild pres- 
sure toward uniformity can make the whole of childhood a 
torment?" 

And Professor James contrasts vividly the servant of right 
with its eager champion when he says: 

''He whose life is based upon the word 'no,' who tells the 
truth because a lie is wicked, and who has constantly to 
grapple with his envious and cowardly and mean propensities, 
is in an inferior situation in every respect to what he would be 
if the love of truth and magnanimity positively possessed him 

[169] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

from the outset and he felt no inferior temptations. Your 
born gentleman is certainly, for this world's purposes, a more 
valuable being than your 'chump, with his grunting resistance 
to his native devils,' even though in God's sight the latter 
may, as the Catholic theologians say, be rolling up great 
stores of 'merit.' " 

Now, "the born gentleman who feels no inferior tempta- 
tions" is the youth who has been trained from the beginning 
to make habitual all the lower levels of brain activity. The 
first step in will-training, then, is habit-formation. That 
patient drill in all the commonplaces of courtesy, considera- 
tion and ciistom which we urge above not only writes in the 
very molecules of the child automatic responses, but manu- 
factures his impulses into ruHng motives. So will-training 
really begins before the child appears to have a will of his 
own. Our wills are so exclusively the product of accumu- 
lated tendencies that, as Professor Frederick E. Bolton tells 
us, we are free only in the direction in which our past life 
allows us to act. Dr. G. Stanley Hall's dictum that "We 
will with all that we have willed" may be made even stronger. 
We will only with that we have willed. The child may be 
thoroughly impoverished or forever endowed according 
as his habit-formations have been patient, varied and 
liberal. 

Next there must be steadily that moral training which at 
least helps the child to recognize goodness when he sees it 
and to call evil by its right name. Professor Jam^es 
again, in a passage that has become classic, insists that in 
hours of moral indecision the assistance needed is often 
not so much a stronger will as a clearer intelligence. 
He illustrates the relation between will and brains as 
follows : 

"The hackneyed example of moral deliberation is the case 
of an habitual drunkard under temptation. He has made a 

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MORE METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

resolve to reform, but he is now solicited again by the bottle. 
His moral triumph or failure literally consists in his finding 
the right name for the case. If he says that it is a case of not 
wasting good Hquor already poured out, or a case of not 
being churHsh or unsociable when in the midst of friends, or 
the case of learning something at last about a brand of 
whisky which he never met before, or a case of celebrating 
a pubHc hoHday, or a case of stimulating himself to a more 
energetic resolve in favor of abstinence than any he has ever 
yet made, then he is lost. His choice of the wrong name 
seals his doom. But if, in spite of all the plausible good names 
with which his thirsty fancy so copiously furnishes him, he 
unwaveringly clings to the truer bad name, and apperceives 
the case as that of 'being a drunkard, being a drunkard, be- 
ing a drunkard,' his feet are planted on the road to salvation. 
He saves himself by thinking rightly." 

And so in childhood. Regular and reasonable character- 
ization in the home of acts of dishonor by their true names, 
the exposure of moral fallacies cherished in the local set 
of young people, sex education that is not only protective 
hygienically, but that rigorously insists upon the brutishness, 
mischievousness and social treachery of either male or fe- 
male prostitution — all these fix in the memory and predis- 
position of the young person the names that belong to the 
offenses against the eternal law of right. 

Volition is undeniably based largely upon good ideas plus 
a stock of good memories. Yet, beyond these, our chief 
task, especially toward the dawn of adolescence, is not drill 
or instruction, but direct reinforcement of the will. In the 
home the best method of will-training is to give a child fre- 
quent opportunities to use his sense. This can be done in 
early childhood by taking a uniformly kindly but thought- 
ful attitude toward permissions. Some parents permit their 
children to do everything. Others seem almost to have an 

[171] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

obsession against permitting anything. With still others the 
parental mood governs all decisions and the children learn 
to ask practically nothing except when the parent seems 
manifestly Indulgent. Now the proper attitude should have 
nothing to do with the mood and little with the viewpoint 
of the parent. 

"When, therefore," said Jacob Abbott, "a child asks 'May 
I do this?' or 'May I do that?' the question for the mother to 
consider is not whether the thing proposed Is a wise or a 
foolish thing to do — that is, whether it would be wise or 
foolish for her, if she, with her Ideas and feelings, were in the 
place of the child — but only whether there is any harm or 
danger in It; and if not, she should give her ready and cordial 
consent." 

With the modern emphasis upon the will as being not a 
separate organ of the man, but simply the man willing, choos- 
ing, making, comes a strong belief In the need of training 
the hand as the chief agent of the will. All that we can do 
in the way of encouraging the young to make their own play- 
things out of ready-at-hand materials, to invent and execute 
their own recreations, to amplify at home the school training 
in manual crafts, to do chores, to engage In small commercial 
transactions, helps in developing the child who can think 
ahead, decide vigorously, work patiently and, at length, will 
wisely. 

A very valuable help in strengthening the will is to insist 
habitually upon the child's taking time to make every deci- 
sion, and then to regard the decision as a closed incident. 
This, of course, does not mean that he will never reverse, but 
it does mean that he will not perpetually be turning around 
and regretting that he did not do something different. When 
the boy has leisurely chosen his necktie, let him accustom 
himself to turn resolutely away from the counter and not 
come back wistfully to change his mind. Such decisions are 

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MORE METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

not really decisions at all, and they create a frame of mind 
which later leads to unnecessary misery. 

While suggesting as we have that negative discipline is 
crippling and that continually to say "Don't" to a child pro- 
d-uces a child who cannot do, we need also to point out the 
radical difference between being told "Don't" and being able 
to say "Don't" to one. While it often happens that he who 
can refrain, postpone, deny himself, is accused of being weak- 
willed, the fact is that it takes a high grade of will-power to 
inhibit. The child who stormily insists upon having his own 
way shows strong passions rather than a strong will, but until 
we find a youth who can withhold from what he wants at the 
command of duty or a higher want, we have not found one 
whose will can be trusted alone. The children who showed a 
guest some candy on a shelf and remarked naturally "After 
lunch we may have it" were really stronger than the hero of 
jam-closet depredations. Just as fast as we can transfer the 
emphasis from "You must" to "I must," we are attaining 
maturity for our offspring, and until that change comes, ma- 
turity has not arrived. 

Reasonable choice may often be combined with obedience 
or acquiescence during the later grammar-school years by 
pleasant mutual compacts that involve some optional element. 
The habit of church-going, though important, grows harder 
to maintain as maturity approaches. The parent, therefore, 
agrees that each child shall choose one Sunday a month to 
stay at home. The result, in the writer's experience, was that 
the privilege was gratefully accepted and not taken advantage 
of, while the quiet use made of the monthly home Sabbath 
seemed to show a real physical necessity for it. So "swap- 
ping off" chores, giving unexpected privileges after cheerful 
performance of duty, centering social pleasures entirely on 
Friday evenings, all tend to soften discipline with kindness and 
yet put the willful child upon honor not to maltreat mercy. 

[173] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

By the close of this period the writer is convinced that the 
allowance, which we will suppose has been a regular and in- 
creasing weekly amount covering all ''extras," should now be- 
come inclusive — that is, the weekly payment to the youth of 
one fifty-second of his annual needs (not including food and 
accidentals) so that he by this time becomes a junior partner 
of the household, doing his regular and agreed chores and re- 
ceiving his stipend as a due and not as an act of grace. The 
value of this idea, which is really the expression of a principle, 
not only financially, but m.orally, is expounded in full in the 
next part of this volume. 

Parent and Teacher 
Although we have been speaking of children of school years 
we have talked entirely about home discipline. This 
has been intentional, because the home is the place 
Vv^here discipline ought to begin, continue and end. From 
homes where there is good discipline the school expects little 
trouble. A word ought to be said, however, about the co- 
operation of parent and teacher in methods of government. 
Often the attitude of the mother toward the teacher is that 
of suspicion, and her idea of the purpose of a visit to school 
is to "come and complain about Johnnie." But more often 
the position is that of ignorance. 'Tt is," says someone, "as 
though two men would grow a hedge, one on either side, 
trimming and shaping, never recognizing one another, nor 
taking cognizance of the plan each might have in mind." 
No mother ever had a good visit with a good teacher with- 
out being amazed to find how many things she had discovered 
about her child that she did not know before. She will also 
find that her own task becomes much easier if she can both 
learn something from the teacher about her methods of dis- 
cipline and also co-operate in them. The wise parent ob- 
serves that her child's teacher is a friendly expert, always 

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MORE METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

at her service in the home problems as well as the school 
problems. Teachers thus honored and prized learn not only 
to know the child better as they know his home and mother, 
but they are strengthened by such appreciation and co-opera- 
tion to do wiser and better work with the child. 



[175] 



CHAPTER XV 

SEX DISCIPLINE 
The Problem and the Period 

During the grammar-school years the problem of sex dis- 
ciplme gradually changes. The child ceases to be monopo- 
lized by the home and is mioulded more by his school and 
his chums. 

Careful investigation shows that not more than one out of 
ten boys reaches the age of twelve or thirteen without a com- 
plete, although often unwholesome, knowledge of the facts 
connected with human reproduction. It would be strange 
if this were not true. When fairy tales and mythology, the 
Bible and Shakespeare, the dictionary and the encyclopedia, 
posters and advertisements, poetry and art, and the conver- 
sation of children are full of these themes, it would be indeed 
a blockhead who would not investigate them and a fool who 
would not acquire some measure of information. As soon 
as his sexual nature awakens, pictures, customs, dress and a 
world of coarse masculine ideas are at hand to stimulate it. 
He has come out of seclusion forever. 

Unwholesome self-consciousness regarding these topics will 
be slow to increase in the life of a wisely-instructed boy. It 
is those who have been bafEed in their search for knowledge 
to whom the period of extraordinary sex-hunger is most 
difficult. 

The father who thinks it safe to wait until his boy is about 
fourteen and immediately facing his personal problem will 
generally be dismayed to discover that his son regards it 
as a joke that anybody should be ignorant upon this vital 
theme. 

[176] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

To the boy who arrives at this age and who has been 
refused exact information by his father, two feelings are pos- 
sible: that of good-natured contempt which results if the 
boy has suffered no harm from being denied his right of 
knowledge; that of cynical bitterness and suspicion if he has 
suffered by this neglect. In the former case he will think 
of his father as a coward and in the latter as a knave. 

Whenever a suggestion is made to talk to boys and young 
men as to the truth of life, we may generally expect to hear 
the argument that there might be "some boy'* in ignorance 
of these facts "whose curiosity might be aroused and who 
might be led into bad things" by such scientific instruction. 
This saintly youth exists largely as a figment of the imag- 
ination. "It is a crass delusion," states the author of a 
pamphlet pubHshed by the Indiana State Board of Health, 
"to beHeve that any boy can reach the age of fourteen or 
fifteen, unless imbecilic, who has not acquired a pretty good 
idea of the reproductive processes, and this supposititious 
'saintly youth' should be sent to the scrap heap of pitiful 
bogies." The similar idea that such a "saintly youth" can 
get to manhood uncontaminated, simply because he has 
spiritual ideals, unaccompanied by a knowledge of the facts 
of life, is equally unthinkable. 

Postponed explanation is difficult. It meets shame in the 
child as well as in the parent. It is unnecessarily abrupt and 
is apt to be isolated from the other facts of Hfe. Confidence 
in the parent not only makes the child believe what the 
parent says and turn to him for more light, but gives him 
courage to bring to him his failures as well as his questions. 

The parents must accompany the child through his boy- 
hood, endeavoring always to retain his confidence, to answer 
his questions, to emphasize unmistakably by their conver- 
sation and conduct the noblest personal ideals and, above 
all, to try to live sympathetically near their child's level. 

[ -^77 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Toward the end of this period the father will notice that his 
son tends insensibly to turn toward himself rather than his 
mother, and he reahzes that it is ''getting to be up to him," 
because they two have the same sex class-consciousness. 
There are several special problems in this period. 

Self-abuse 

The first concerns the development and possible misuse of 
the sex organs. 

Concerning this development the first fact to be com- 
municated is tnat, according to many of our best physicians, 
they have another use than the reproductive one: if not 
abused it is their work to pour a continuous stream of 
energy into the young Hfe. 'The testis," according to Dr. 
Winfield S. Hall, "produces two forms of secretion, the in- 
ternal secretion and the external secretion; the internal se- 
cretion being absorbed, produces those male characteristics 
which we group together under virility, while the external 
secretion is used for procreation." Since there is nothing 
which every normal boy desires more earnestly than to be a 
virile, abounding type of man, the thought that he has the 
power to become such by conserving his own resources is one 
of the strongest stimuli toward self-control. 

This positive attitude is the best antidote to the most 
common dereliction of boyhood, the habit of handling the 
personal sex organs. Concerning this difficulty a few sane 
and reassuring words need to be spoken. Parents ought to 
know that the habit is practically universal, at least as an 
experiment, that it is practised with some frequency by the 
great majority of lads, but that its occasion and results are 
somewhat misunderstood. It usually has its origin among 
uninstructed boys as an expression of curiosity concerning 
the function of this organ, and the first occasion is quite 
often the result of the accidental discovery that it is pleasura- 

[ 178 ] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

ble. Sometimes it is learned by imitation, and therefore 
sleeping with other children and unwatched famiUarities 
should be avoided. In all these cases it begins innocently. 
To endeavor to check it by corporal punishment is only to 
incite recourse to it later for comfort, and merely to scold a 
child about it is only to puzzle him. Fear may drive the 
lad to despair or, later, to other forms of impurity. Physi- 
cians today are not emphasizing the physical harm of this 
practise. They rather think of it as a nasty habit, a shame- 
ful kind of selfish indulgence, a kind of arrest, limiting to 
some extent the "nerve," the ambition and the stamina of a 
growing boy. It appears to be common not, as we may 
have supposed, among the most vigorous, but among the 
weaker sort, which perhaps explains its prevalence among the 
feeble-minded. And refinement is not a barrier to it, since 
perhaps it is a disease of those who are softly nurtured, 
overfed and indulged. Its availability encourages its devel- 
opment and its secrecy prevents detection or rigorous 
prevention. 

A number of methods of cure may be apphed, all positive 
and inspiring. An athletic ideal is almost a panacea, when 
accepted as voraciously as it usually is by a normal boy. To 
get a boy "good and tired" is a help to make him literally 
good. In general, we are trying to postpone the aggravation 
of the sex impulse. Preoccupation, busyness, the sense of 
responsibility, are all cognate self-preservative motives. The 
broadest thoughts possible of manliness, pride, ambition, 
must be encouraged. Instead of threatening the boy with 
fatal results for his misconduct — which will not happen — we 
should try to cause him to sense the joy of being clean. 
The best motive of all — and we want to build his continence 
on lasting foundations — is self-control. The boy who is 
greedy today will almost surely be sensual tomorrow. The 
idea that man's sexual function was given chiefly for personal 

i 179 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

enjoyment leads to a selfish view of all life. To this type 
of boy the habit, instead of being, as some suppose, a sub- 
stitute for fornication, leads directly to it later. The im- 
portance of regarding the matter seriously at all now is 
right here, that self-control of this function now, as of his 
whole being, is the only adequate guarantee of a Hfetime of 
pure living. 

The father, of course, must help. Let him hustle the boy 
merrily out of bed as soon as he wakes in the morning, show 
him how to enjoy a cold splash and rub, and keep him busy 
all day. In this way he will safely get over the two danger- 
points, the early morning, when there is a tendency to 
languor and sensual dreaming, and the evening, when the 
boy who is not healthily sleepy is again subject to temp- 
tation. Let him not accuse his son of evil, but infer that he 
expects nothing but good of him, and whenever he instructs 
him, do so not in a superior way, but with the acknowledg- 
ment that the fight is one that he himself knows all about. 
The boy may not fully or always conquer, but under this 
regiment he is quite certain to re-establish himself and have 
the will to win. 

Seminal Emissions 

The second thing, which does not need to be communi- 
cated until the very end of this period, is the fact of the 
naturalness of seminal emissions. This phenomenon of late 
boyhood is as startling to the uninstructed boy as is the first 
menstruation to the uninstructed girl, and is calculated to 
be as great a shock and terror. If he can learn that these 
discharges are, if moderate in frequency, the sign of vigor 
rather than of weakness, he will be delivered from the hands 
of the quack and the scare-monger. They may be tempered 
in frequency by an active physical life, especially by walk- 
ing and gymnastics, by the frequent use of cold water, by 
circumcision when necessary, and especially by the habit of 

[i8o] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

pure thinking and pure reading. Where their effect is evi- 
dently one of physical relief, they need cause the parent no 
anxiety. Their occurrence is no doubt stimulated in an un- 
wholesome way by all habits of self-indulgence, and it is 
against these rather than the results that we should bend our 
endeavors. 

Sex Worries 
The third problem which parents must face during these 
years is that of morbid anxieties and worries in connection 
with some phase of the sex-life. The fact that some worries 
and anxieties do not apparently have this connection should 
not cause the parent to forget that their rise is usually, 
though obscurely, from this source. The most common mor- 
bidness of thought is because of some fancied abnormality 
of the physical life. Because of his ignorance or because 
of his access to the literature of quacks or from some hint 
dropped in the conversation of a chum, most boys at some 
time or another get the impression that they are not right 
physically. The slightest difference of size or shape of the 
outer reproductive organs, a fancied pain, irritation or slug- 
gishness, the magnified results to body or soul of self-abuse, 
ignorance concerning the universality of seminal losses, and 
most of all the genuine excitement, unrest and discomfort 
of the sexual awakening, with its alternate moods of joy and 
sorrow and its close relations to conscience and the moral 
awakening — these constitute the well-known "storm and 
stress period" of life. Because of a new touchiness and re- 
serve the exact difficulty is hard to probe. A background 
of confidence and of the frank communication of knowledge 
and a foreground of considerateness, silent sympathy and 
optimism will add peace to the landscape. 

Further Instruction 
The fourth problem is that of further sex-instruction. It 

[i8i] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

is usually hardly necessary during the years of boyhood to 
give more than an intimation as to the filth-diseases which 
are the wages of sin, and then chiefly, not to scare the boy, 
since continence built on fear is often cowardly, but to sug- 
gest that he avoid, for the sake of the family health, any 
contamination by contact with places and persons who are 
thus affected. Actual immorality among boys of this age 
is unusual. When it occurs it is usually because of the ad- 
vances of older, immoral girls. There are some communities 
where the frequency of such perversions is such that parents 
feel themselves obliged to take precautions and give in- 
structions which would ordinarily not be required until several 
years later. 

Throughout this period it is impossible to say too much 
about the effect of the thoughts upon the life. Truly, out 
of the heart are the issues of life, and the Master was right 
when he placed sin in the lustful thought rather than in the 
act. The boy who thinks himself clean because his acts do 
not offend, but who indulges impure day-dreams, is not only 
weakening his stamina, but he is feeding a wild beast whom 
some day he will not be able to tame. 

As to further information concerning the facts of life, needs 
vary. In general, it is necessary to make some sort of re- 
view of the subject at times, to be sure that the child has 
retained clearly in mind the import of the main facts. We 
want to leave him no sex worries. He should know chastely 
the main physical differences of the sexes, consonant with 
their different functions in reproduction, he should be aware 
that there are unfortunate women who make a hire of their 
bodies and men who are so debased as to prostitute their 
own powers by unclean approaches to women and even to 
boys and he should appreciate that his mother and sister are 
periodically in a condition which requires especially tender 
care and that the reason his girl playmates sometimes break 

[ 182 ] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

engagements with him or seem otherwise perverse is often 
due to the same cause. He should learn to ignore the ad- 
vertisements of the quack and to refuse books upon the sub- 
ject, since his parents have access to better ones. It will 
probably be impossible to prevent his talking over some of 
these matters with his chum, but this will not be especially 
harmful if he, can be kept in the habit of talking them over 
at home also. 



[183] 



CHAPTER XVI 

RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

There are at least four interesting tasks whii:h most con- 
cern parents in the religious training of boys and girls 
between the ages of seven and fourteen, the years usually 
embraced in the common schools. These four will be treated 
in this chapter. 

The first is the task of will-training by habit-forming; the 
second, that of helping the child to master a code, or, in 
other words, teaching him what is right; the third, that of 
helping him in his relations with others; the fourth, that of 
assisting in the training of his feeHngs. 

Will Training by Habit Forming 
We have already discussed this at some length, but we 
wish now to do so particularly from two standpoints: the 
relation to religion of all habits, and the desirability of the 
continued practice of what are known as the distinctly 
religious habits. 

The importance of right personal habits is often disre- 
garded. The fact that they are great in their meaning and 
that they are distinctly religious in their character is not 
always appreciated. Take, for example, some of the homely 
personal habits and think what they mean. Neatness, in 
its deepest sense, is respect for work; cleanness is respect 
for the body ; punctuality is respect for time ; accuracy is 
respect for truth; personal hygiene is respect for the future. 
These are not only great virtues and religious virtues, but 
they are to be life virtues. 

Our appreciation of their importance, even at its lowest, 

[184] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

is naturally greater than that of our children. Pretty nearly 
every act of the child in early boyhood or girlhood is im- 
pelled by pleasure or personal advantage, and personal ad- 
vantage and pleasure are not easily apparent in exercising 
these virtues. The child has not the knowledge to realize 
what they may mean to him in after life and he has not at 
this time that sense of shame which in after years becomes 
such a potent influence in causing him to conform to the 
customs of adults. 

We can do something by suggestion. We may do some- 
thing by calling on the child for imitation, since the chief 
factor in the formation of the child's character during these 
early years is the influence of real, actually-observed human 
beings in action. We must finally depend a good deal upon 
firmness, which is by no means the same as nagging, but a 
calm, impersonal and steady pressure of authority. 

Next to the personal habits, the religious observances 
claim our attention. We must not expect too much religious 
feeHng from a young child, for as G. Walter Fiske has 
acutely put it, those who try to make children religious 
precociously are not fishers of men but scoopers of minnows. 
*'How," asks Milton S. Littlefield, "can we expect a child to 
be reformed when he is yet unformed?" But he may easily 
learn to assume, among his personal habits, that of defer- 
ential demeanor in sacred places and at sacred times. 

Something has been said earlier about our duty in teach- 
ing prayers to children. Such prayers must be closely re- 
lated to the child's own experience and feeling. We must 
be careful what we teach children about prayer. It is un- 
fortunate to emphasize the personal benefits which may be 
received in direct response to petition. The young child is 
in the wonder stage of his existence and is inclined to be 
credulous of even more than he is told. If he comes to think 
of prayer as chiefly beggary, he will soon find that all his 

[I8S] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

selfish petitions are not answered, and that he has been 
brought to the intellectual dilemma of thinking either that 
God is not the answerer of prayer or else that his parents 
were deceived as to the real nature of God. It is especially 
important, during the self-regarding days of childhood, to 
emphasize in prayer two elements — that of thankfulness and 
that of communion. If the child will form the habit of bring- 
ing to God his happinesses as well as his wants, and if he 
can learn that prayer is not a thing of set places and times 
but is the privilege of regular and steady communion, it will 
gradually become not a mere observance but a vital factor 
in his forming rehgious experience. The child who is told 
that God will be his helper chiefly in doing hard things 
bravely and in overcoming himself will, if he persists in shap- 
ing his petitions to such an end, soon come to ratify these 
facts in his own experience. "A boy comes to believe in God 
personally," says a wise friend of young people, ''because 
in the hour of his soul's stress he has to have God's help 
in overcoming his temptations and because he finds that 
help coming into his Hfe in answer to his own sincere 
prayer." 

The child's prayer should grow as the child grows. Dr. 
Hodges says: ''When the children begin to go to school, 
the time may be taken as an opportunity to revise their 
prayers. And the same may be done when they are ready to 
pass out of the lower grades into the high school. In this 
way, the deepening and enriching of religion is a natural 
accompaniment to the progress of their education." 

An English schoolmaster gives this experience: "I have 
often known boys to come to school who, at the age of 
thirteen, have never said, and have never been advised to 
say, more than the Lord's Prayer and 'Gentle Jesus, meek 
and mild.' Very excellent were such prayers for them at the 
age of four or five, but now they need to be supplemented 

[i86] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

if they are to be in touch with the boy's Hfe; for unless 
prayer develops in harmony with the developing of life, its 
spiritual influence is in danger of being unfelt." 

Among suitable and helpful religious observances one feels 
like emphasizing afresh what is said to be the obsolescent 
institution of family worship. Some of us feel that we haven't 
the time and others are shy of their ability to lead such 
exercises. But surely the parent who feels himself incapa- 
ble of conducting devotional exercises in his home could at 
least establish the custom of having Quaker grace at table, 
and could have a regular, if not daily or weekly, service 
of sacred song, if not of prayer, which should become a 
family tradition and be the expression of the household's 
thanksgiving. 

Another religious observance is that of reading the Bible 
and other religious literature. Some children seem to re- 
spond with pleasure as well as with profit to daily and regular 
habits of this sort. Others appreciate being read to by the 
mother personally or at family worship. 

At least three difficulties suggest themselves in connec- 
tion with the habit of Bible reading by young children. The 
first is that all of the parts of the Bible are not equally 
suitable for young children. Dr. Theodore G. Soares has 
called attention to the fact that if we understand children it 
is not hard for us to discover what portions of the Bible are 
real for them. He suggests such a selection. A large part 
of the first seventeen books of the Bible has satisfactory 
material. These, especially the writings from the prophetic 
historians, contain great tales for children. On the other 
hand, the sermons and prophecies of the Old Testament are 
difficult reading. The Law, too, with the exception of the 
Decalogue and some few moral and charitable command- 
ments, is away from the interests of children. The same is 
true of the rituals. Some of the Psalms, especially those of 

[187] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

personal experience, strike a responsive chord in the child's 
soul, but those which deal with the social wrongs of Israel 
will not appeal to him until he comes to the social period i 
of his life. A boy's book of Proverbs would contain half 
the present collection and would be a desirable text-book. 
The mystery of the Apocalypses of both Old and New Tes- 
tament must be left until maturity. In the Gospels again we 
have splendid story-material, bringing the sensitive heart of 
the child close to the great Master. New Testament history, 
so far as it includes hero-material, will be somewhat effective. 
The letters of Paul are beyond the child. Dr. Newton M. 
Hall has done a service by compiling a graded Bible en- 
titled "The Golden Book," in which he has made a distinct 
endeavor to place in order suited to the development of the 
child those portions of the Bible which have the deepest 
meaning to his soul. 

A second difficulty in Bible reading, especially as a child 
approaches high-school age, is that by this time the Bible 
has become trite. Deep as our reverence may be for the 
Scriptures themselves, we are certainly making a dangerous 
intellectual experiment in reiterating their phrases to the 
child everywhere at home, in Sunday school and in church. 
The mind after a time refuses to absorb that which it has 
heard so often and few young people arrive at adolescence 
without thinking they know as much about the Bible as they 
want to. Of course there are a good many new things which 
can be taught about the Bible, even to a cocksure American 
youngster. We can relieve this difficulty if we present the 
Bible to children of grammar-school years in a new form, 
as in finely-illustrated editions, in separate books furnished 
with interpretative notes, and especially in fresh versions, 
such as "The Modern Speech New Testament" and that 
charming edition prepared by William Wye Smith called 
"The New Testament in Braid Scots." 

[i88] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

The greatest trouble is that we adults cannot seem to 
each the Bible without being determined to moralize about it. 
Dne of the distinguishing features of the Biblical stories is 
hat they never close with the phrase "This fable teaches." 
rhey never "tag a moral to a tale." The child who learns 
:o enjoy the Bible for its stories, as dramatic episodes, as 
)oetry — in short, as literature — cannot escape, as none have 
iver been able to escape, its deep moral implications. 

The problem of Sunday observance is an important, yet a 
lifficult one, in the lives of many growing children. It is 
mportant because we recognize Sunday as our great day of 
privilege, the day for joy, recreation and compensation. The 
lifficulty is to make it such to lively youngsters without 
:ausing it to cease to be such to their parents and to the 
leighborhood. In general, we shall be more successful if 
ive emphasize the privileges and joy of the Sabbath rather 
Lhan deal with it negatively. It is a day of freedom rather 
:han a day for repression. There are perhaps three ele- 
iients in a good Sabbath for children — change, rest and 
uplift. 

One of the most sensible ways to make a Sunday change 
is in the way of food. Even the saints are described in the 
New Testament as sitting at a table in Paradise. A change 
Df play is a happy resource on Sunday. The recognition of 
the presence of children in the Hebrew family is not more 
beautifully seen than in the Old Testament laws, the tenor 
of which is that man must not work but may play on the 
Sabbath. In order to give particular relish to the things 
provided for Sunday, we should reserve them for this one 
day of the week. If there is anything new in the home let 
it make its first appearance on Sunday; the new phonograph 
record, the new dress, the new piece of music the daughter 
has memorized, the new joke the son has heard, a fresh blos- 
som on some household plant, the just-completed handiwork. 

[189] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Another agreeable Sunday change is for the family to do 
things together. In our modern busy households, mealtime 
is the longest consecutive period when the whole family is 
together, except on Sunday. One therefore feels like recom- 
mending for the Sabbath certain tasks which can be wrought 
out by father and the children around the fireplace. 

Parents are probably in more need of rest on Sunday 
than are their children, yet children, too, grow weary, 
especially after Saturday play. The only point is that 
they take their rest in a different fashion from their elders. 
Rest for the youngster does not consist exclusively in lying 
down. What rests a child is not the attempt to stop the 
machinery of life but the turning of the vital force into new 
channels. Nobody seems to have much to say about what 
boys can do on Sunday. Their interest in Bible puzzles is 
apt to wane after a time, and any use of the day which keeps 
mother busy in furnishing entertainment is as bad for the 
boy as it is for the mother. One good plan, especially for 
winter time, is to let the boys "fix up" their rooms on Sun- 
day. I say ''fix up" rather than "clean up" for obvious rea- 
sons. This is a good time also for collections and for quiet 
hospitality in the children's rooms. It will not tire the boys 
and it will rest their mothers if they form the regular habit 
of preparing and serving the Sunday evening meal. 

As to the problem of uplift on Sunday for boys, we get 
perhaps the best definition of the religious purpose of the 
day from that line of Burns: "They tune their hearts, by 
far the noblest aim." But how can we tune the hearts of 
boys to better things on Sundays? The first question that 
arises is that of Sunday church-going. Sunday school, as we 
have indicated above, is a poor substitute for church service. 
In the church of the modern spirit the church service is not 
in such contrast with nature that church-going seems to the 
children like imprisonment. The service is dramatic and is 

[ 190 ] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

enlivened by the singing of children's choirs and by a ser- 
mon or story to the young people. Children of the age 
which we are discussing in this chapter seldom rebel against 
this habit if it is established early. 

It can hardly be claimed that the Sunday newspaper is an 
opportunity for Sunday upHft. Some parents take special 
pains to bring cheerful, as well as instructive, literature into 
the home by borrowing on Saturday from the pubHc library 
enough good books to last the family throughout the day. 
Others buy the Sunday morning paper but destroy the 
colored supplement. Still others make the sensible rule that 
the Sunday paper shall not be read in the home after ten 
o'clock on Sunday morning. Others lay it away until Mon- 
day. The greatest objection to the Sunday paper is that 
stated by G. Stanley Hall, namely, that it causes those who 
read it to ''strike the key-note of the day on a low level." 

The best method of keeping Sunday on a high level is 
that of companionship with parents. In the household 
where Sunday is regarded primarily as a clan day, a house- 
hold day, and is so observed from early childhood, with the 
familiar and resourceful co-operation of all, the young peo- 
ple later are less Hkely to show disloyalty to their clan 
either by deserting them or putting them to shame on Sun- 
day. Sunday is certainly Father's Day. It is the day when 
a generous-spirited father recognizes his privilege in giving 
his wife a chance for some rest and soHtude and in which 
he steps forward and learns to know his children. The Sun- 
day afternoon walk with father might almost be regarded 
as an American institution. In many families there is a club, 
of which father or mother is the president, which meets 
every Sunday afternoon, perhaps in the attic, where "Sun- 
day best" toys and books are laid away for the purpose, or 
around the piano, where an entertainment is furnished to 
which each contributes at least one item. 

[191] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

The best opportunity for creating a religious atmosphere 
in the home on Sunday is that which comes through service 
to others. If Sunday afternoon is given to a walk in which a 
visit is made on the sick or suffering, it certainly furnishes 
more wholesome inspiration than does even the formal re- 
ligious exercises, and any day so spent is more pleasing to 
the God who loves mercy and not sacrifice. 'Then," says 
Dr. Hodges, "if the day close with singing of hymns and the 
benediction of quiet music, it ends well." 

We turn now from the discussion of mere rehgious habits 
to that of definite duties and acts of service. The writer 
believes that such duties and service are possible even to 
quite young children, if only they be graded to their capacity. 
As we have said, early childhood is a self-regarding period, 
and at first the boy may have no higher aim than that of 
learning by experience that he can get more for himself by 
doing something for others. Whatever work is given a 
young boy to do should be simple, so that he may secure 
immediate results and the encouragement of success. He 
needs praise, too, not extravagant but kindly. Parents are 
more successful in training their children in habits of work 
if they are ingenious in arranging that much of it shall be 
done in the spirit of play. What drudgery has to do with 
religion is just this: the principal part of a child's religion con- 
sists in the daily doing of duty. 

Every boy ought to be trained to help his mother, even 
in household tasks, which are too often associated solely 
with the life of girls. In these days when grown men are 
proud of their skill in housekeeping, cooking and camping, 
it is not humiliating to a boy to learn to practice these 
arts when he is a child. Then there is the care of pets and 
of the flowers, and soon that of the younger children. 
Charles Lamb spoke with some bitterness of "the coxcombry 
of taught charity," but he must have had in mind those pre- 

[192] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

tences at doing good to which children in the earlier days 
were too often indentured. Children soon learn the pleasure 
of giving to the sick their flowers or goodies and their sympa- 
thetic attention. They are never happier than in exploiting 
their early skill in handicraft through gifts at Christmas for 
those they love, even spending months in eager preparation, or 
in ministering to children in foreign lands by pictures, scrap- 
books, etc., so long as the needs of these distant comrades 
have been made childlike. They respond also, if the appeal 
be suitable, to times of self-denial, and the lenten season is 
an occasion which may from very early days have a depth of 
meaning to young children, provided the objects of their 
sacrifice and benevolence be those which have aroused their 
sympathy and devotion. 

Throughout all this study of patient control in the making 
of good habits, we see an underlying principle — that of con- 
formity to law. The child, as has so often been said, is in 
the Old Testament period of his life. The impression which 
comes to us from that magnificent volume is that of the 
majesty of obedience. Our strong effort must be always to 
make obedience majestic. As we have said, even the small, 
minor habits of convenience and order are a form of rev- 
erence to some of the great facts of Hfe. It will not be 
long before opportunity will come to show the restive boy 
that not he only, but all, have to obey. The command to 
which he is obedient is not the mere fiat of his father; it 
is part of the eternal law of God. Opportunities will come 
to persuade the wondering child that even father and mother 
also have to obey. And little children are glad to be 
obedient. They like authority if they get it early and if it 
is loving and fair. 

Thus it is that experiences in duty-doing and conformity to 
law are made into the substance of life. They grow gradually, 
like living stones, into ideals and prejudices — and our preju- 

[193] 



THE BOY PROBLEAI IN THE HOME 

dices are part of the life stuff, too — which make foundations 
for stones that are added later. 

Mastering a Code 

''Children act morally," says Swift, "long before they know 
why they do so. The discussion of principles of conduct 
comes later. Indeed, it is a mnstake to make boys and 
girls over-conscious of ethical motives. For this reason a 
period set apart for moral instruction is likely to be dis- 
astrous," This is true enough, but a child does not inherit 
the Decalogue. If he is going to do right he must learn to 
know what right is, and not only what it is but how it is 
done; in other words, he must acquire the technique of 
righteousness. 

This may come, as has been shown in a previous chapter, 
by means of stories, and now, not only by stories but also 
by the child's own reading. The great hero tales and adven- 
ture stories of the Bible and of other literature mould im- 
pressions of the greatness of special virtues. If we can be 
somewhat ingenious, too, with reaHstic narratives appropriate 
to the moment, we lay hold upon an adroit instrument of 
moral handicraft. 

A great deal of good is done in the child world by means 
of talking. A patient conversation between mother and child 
calls up real moral qualities. It is sometimes wise to argue 
through a matter whose justice the child has not clearly 
seen. It is often reasonable to reiterate until he is convinced. 
On the whole, before the age of thoughtful reasoning we 
may generally be short and dogmatic. Dr. G. Stanley Hall 
allows some room here for the old-fashioned scolding. Only 
optimistic children thrive under these violent rain storms. 

The next method of giving a child a moral code is that 
of direct ethical teaching. There are some authorities who 
allow little place for it in a child's life, but there are few 

[194] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

who would minimize it if it could be successfully done. The 
difficulties are obvious. It is hard to teach life out of a book. 
There is often a keen opposition between doses and duties, 
and sometimes between diet and duties. 'The high pulpit 
method," as it has been called, itself puts a barrier between 
the parent and the child. It must, however, have some valid- 
ity or else the "foolishness of preaching" would never have 
been effective. Perhaps adult sermons suggest how direct 
ethical teaching is helpful. They probably seldom convict 
of truth which has not already been partially known or ac- 
cepted. They are chiefly helpful in three ways: to clarify 
the mind; to confirm in opinions already half-formed; and 
to inspire with hope. Suppose we take these as elements 
of whatever ethical teaching is attempted in the home or 
Sunday school or public school. The next time you have 
occasion to try to teach a child, please endeavor to remember 
the three things you are trying to do: to help him to see 
more clearly, to believe more strongly and to work more 
hopefully for the right. 

The value of direct ethical teaching well done is unmis- 
takable. Every child needs for future service a store of 
facts, ideas and principles. ''When the true revival does 
come, the laying up from within his being, in adolescence," 
says McKeever, "he will be already furnished with the re- 
ligious acts necessary to give expression to the new feelings." 
The splendid memory powers during these fruitful years 
cause the child to retain moral facts and ideas as at no other 
period in life. 

But a boy is not entirely passive as to morals. His con- 
science is not a duck's back, impervious to water, upon which 
we pour in vain an irrigating stream. The task, as someone 
has said, is not to discover God but to name him. Or, as 
Henderson puts it: "We are not, like God in Eden, to fashion 
a man out of the clay of the ground, and breathe into him our 

[I9S] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

own spirit and make him after our own likeness. The man is 
already there in embryo, and it is our high office to clear away 
both spiritual and physical obstructions and limitations, and 
to help our man-child develop into something more admirable 
than any of us have been able to foresee." 

The essential thing in direct moral teaching at this period 
is that it should be concrete. 'The trick is," as Thomas J. 
MacCormack, a school man, has lately said, "so to shape a 
given situation that the interest in the problem springs from 
the student and not from the teacher." And in another place 
he adds, "The crises that occur in moral life supply far more 
reaHstic environment and offer far more piquant material for 
ethical exploitation than tales of the vanished kingdom of 
Syria." The only value of the Bible or any other text- 
book in direct moral teaching is that it enables the boy to 
face the great moral experiences in turn in the lives of 
others. 

We have said that such teaching must be explicit, but it 
must not be too dogmatic. What the boy wants is not a 
ready-made faith, not entirely a code, but most of all — room 
to grow. We must see that our teaching, no matter how 
explicit, has lots of room in it. E. A. Kirkpatrick has given 
us what seems to be a pretty fair discrimination as to the 
various contributions which a boy's friends make to his char- 
acter. His teachers, so Kirkpatrick thinks, contribute to his 
social relations. From his parents he gets the fundamentals 
— justice, patience, sympathy, kindness, reverence, love. From 
his chums come social qualities and the direct application of 
his ethical mind in the laboratory of life. They both 
strengthen his individuality and encourage altruism. Adult 
friends supplement all this. 

There is no doubt that the home must take a more earnest 
and intelligent attitude toward the Sunday school. Instead of 
being willing to relegate the religious education of its young 

[196] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

people to that institution, it ought to regard the Sunday 
school as simply supplementary to the home. In spite of all 
the serious and wise endeavors that are being made to im- 
prove the course of study and the quality of the teachers, we 
may as well face the fact that it will always be impossible for 
a child to get a satisfactory religious education in an institu- 
tion which holds his attention for not more than a half-hour 
each week. The best thing that the Sunday school has to 
give, no matter how well equipped it is or how good are its 
text-books, is the personality of its teachers, and the parents 
are indeed fortunate who may be sure that they have found a 
teacher for their child who is thoroughly good, faithful and 
sympathetic. Such an one, meeting the child freshly and 
upon the ground of a joyous common interest in the Sunday 
school or the social club of the church, may be the means, 
during certain critical years, of doing more for the child's 
development than his parents, who provide sustenance but 
w^ho are sometimes removed from his appreciation by the 
necessity of discipline. 

Relations with Others 
The social bonds of childhood are always bonds of play. 
Something has been said already about the value cf play in 
character development. We may go even further and say 
that in childhood play is an integral part of the child's reli- 
gion. 'The very things that Christ forbids," says Coe, 
"which center in undue self-love are the very things which 
destroy play, while the things that He commends which centre 
in social group activities are the very things that keep play 
going at its highest." I have been told that there is an aris- 
tocratic type of dog that will not eat the humble dog-biscuit 
usually provided for its race, unless it is moulded into the 
shape of a bone. Then he plays with it, and afterwards con- 
sumes it gladly. The child, too, Hkes to play with his food, 

[197] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

and — if the figure be not irreverent — he would fain play even 
with the bread of life before he accepts it as nourishment. 

But the limitations of play are distinct. Even at its best 
it involves only one type of renunciation — namely, that which 
is made for the sake of one's friends. Fair play may involve 
respect, but its most ardent advocate could hardly claim that 
it involves love, for one's enemies. 

We have been contending that this is a self-regarding 
period. The characteristic of games at this period is their 
strong tendency toward competition. Competition in play 
stimulates the desire to be a leader, to excel, and if we can 
only make the aims of effort high enough we can turn this 
competing instinct to moral uses. 

Beginning at about the age of ten and continuing very 
strongly until at least seventeen, the gang spirit practically 
takes possession of the boy's leisure time. It not only absorbs 
his interests, but it adopts a code and becomes an expression 
of his ideals. Never is the child so sensitive to what others 
think of him as at this period. But the others whose opin- 
ion he values are in inverse ratio to their age and wisdom. 

"No matter how angelic a boy may be before his elders," 
says Arthur Holmes, "if boys pronounce him bad his doom is 
sealed before the final tribunal. No matter how bad a boy 
may be before his elders, if boys say he is good, let the world 
withhold its harshness. A volume could easily be filled froiTi 
the experiences of social workers showing that boys who have 
lost all citizenship rights in the artificial world but who are 
loyally upheld by their fellow citizens in the real world, are 
good at bottom and some day, when their chance comes, will 
show the superior nobility of their souls in some magnani- 
mous act." There are certain years, therefore, when, if we 
wish to affect a boy toward righteousness, it is not half so 
important who are the adults whom he knows as who are the 
companions of his own years with whom he plays. There is 

[198] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

no greater religious duty than for us to know and be fre- 
quently in the fellowship of these chums. 'The greatest 
problem in the moral education of children today/' says J. 
Edgar Park, "is the selfishness of parents. They do not Hke 
their children well enough to be friends with them." He 
might have added that they do not like their children well 
enough to be friends with their chums. It is inconceivable 
that a boy should pass through an entirely wholesome 
moral experience with the companions of his own age 
without the knowledge and chaperonage of his father or 
mother. 

Earnest parents are giving much thought to the problems 
connected with the social amusements of their young people. 
They recognize that instead of easily accepting the conven- 
tional Hst of taboos from the past they must try to discover 
what are the actually dangerous amusements toward which, 
at the present time, young people are being tempted ; and 
they recognize, too, that they must meet these dangers not by 
denunciation so much as by replacing them with more whole- 
some pleasures. This matter is so important that a few fur- 
ther and definite words may well be spoken. 

Three forms of amusement have traditionally been placed 
under suspicion: cards, dancing and the theater. When one 
realizes how large a part pleasure plays in the life of young 
people, we may be somewhat dismayed to realize that these 
embrace almost all the available and regular types of amuse- 
ment in the ordinary community, and v/e are at some loss to 
know what to substitute for them. Stripped of some unfor- 
tunate associations, they also seem to represent the funda- 
mental as well as the most varied forms of amusement: cards, 
the rigor of spirited intellectual contest, the joy of facing 
contingencies and the opportunity for relaxation from pres- 
sure; dancing, the joy of grace, motion and care-free social 
intercourse between the sexes; and the theater, the study, 

[199] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

through the mimic world, of human problems, and restfulness, 
by means of visions in the house of dreams and of scenes that 
relieve this life's m.onotony or gild its commonplaces. The 
home that has no word for these ancient and racial sources 
of joy but a frowning "No" is hardly meeting and solving the 
real situation. The child who is not permitted any of these 
pleasures is practically ostracized from the inner social life 
of his chums. The merely negative attitude is never satis- 
fying. A sufficient amount of chloroform, properly admin- 
istered, will make any boy good, but chloroform is not a 
nourishing diet for young people of all ages. The home that 
would substitute other amusements for these has a task of 
infinite patience. The home that uses one or all of these for 
purposes of righteousness has indeed a delicate, skilful, but 
inspiring and hopeful opportunity. 

Let one who has faced these problems as a pastor and 
social worker, as well as a father, state what seems to him 
the probable attitude of many Christian homes, at least in 
the near future, an attitude at which many of them have al- 
regidy arrived. It may be put in this wise: "We will not 
manufacture sins. To play games of skill or chance, to dance 
under proper restriction, to go to clean dramatic entertain- 
ments, are not essentially wrong. These pleasures are often 
misused, but they are too influential, too important, too val- 
uable and indeed, too capable of fine uses to be either blindly 
opposed, or foolishly ignored, or blandly tolerated. It is the 
business of the home not to allow the commercializing of 
pleasure to degrade or deprive our young people. We must 
study these pleasures; we must use them as they ought to be 
used, and we must make them help, not hurt, our boys and 
girls." 

In the statements that follow some wise and earnest people 
will be unable to accord the writer their agreement, for the 
matter is truly a most complex and delicate one. 

[ 200 ] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

Cards 
It is possible to keep cards in their proportionate place in 
life. For young children, they are, like ''Authors" and 
"Parcheesi" a merry play with chance; for young people, 
occasionally, though not regularly, they are a bond for home 
parties. They are not a fitting profession for men nor an 
appropriate steady afternoon vocation for VN^omen. They are 
serviceable to pass the time on long rail journeys and on a 
restless evening after a crov/ded day. The abuse of them Is 
a mark of intellectual rather than moral deficiency. The 
author learned to play cards after he was married in order 
to teach them to his sons. They have become a matter of 
course with them and he has watched with pleasure their 
growing indifference to them as they have outgrown them. 
His sons cannot conceive how they can be wrong. They have 
become eliminated as a form of temptation from their lives. 

Dancing 
Dr. Hugo Miinsterberg recently summed up the debits 
and credits of dancing. He reminded us that because Amer- 
ica now seems dance-crazy we are not to forget that this an- 
cient art, which originally sprang out of religion, probably 
has its values. He recognizes its dangers frankly, which are 
these: the excitement, the hypnotic lulling of the intellect and 
the will-weakening, all of which are produced by movement 
to rhythm; the moral peril of erotic expression in the more 
recent forms of dancing, and the contagiousness of its appeal, 
which extends its influence beyond all reasonable bounds. 
On the other hand, he enumerates, as the credits of dancing: 
the fact that it is a discharge of stored-up energy; that it 
furnishes to those who are weary and overstrained a relaxa- 
tion of joy, reasonably limited by elaborate rules and by 
beautiful and artistic expression, which is needed in a mate- 
rialistic age. "Our social conscience must be wide awake; it 

[ 201 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

will not be blind fate which will decide whether we shall meet 
the lady or the tiger." 

This seems to be a pretty fair summing-up. Dr. Miinster- 
berg, however, did not have young people of high-school age 
particularly in mind, and concerning dancing as it applies to 
them a further word ought to be said. The principal and per- 
petual objection to the dance is because of its erotic influence. 
To many, the physical contact of the sexes that is involved is 
somewhat shocking. If one felt sure that such influence and 
contact would be discouraged by abolishing the dance, all 
good people might unite in a movement to do so. While we 
may agree with Joseph Lee "that love-making is not properly 
a routine occupation," it will be foolish to deny that the 
primal forces exist in every normal boy and girl. This mutual 
attraction, which has in it not only physical attraction but 
the continuation of the race and the perpetuation of the fam- 
ily, is as he insists, not a power to be decried or fought 
against. Courtship plays were among the first forms of 
pleasure. Informal social relationships between the sexes 
are always bound to exist. Their expressions may take the 
form of kissing games or of undesirable license in private ac- 
quaintance, but they cannot be and ought not to be entirely 
suppressed. It seems to be the important and delicate duty 
of the world of parenthood to chaperone the acquaintanceship 
and familiarities of the young in a way to give them the full- 
est opportunity for sane pleasure, while protecting them from 
the activities of uncontrolled passion. 

Dancing is probably the m^ost skilful way of turning the 
instinct for physical contact toward wholesomeness that 
could be invented. Its conventionalities and gallantries and 
the very difficulties of mastering its technique are themselves 
a barrier against impure thoughts and its publicity in itself 
is protective. The sex element is by no means the only one 
involved in dancing. It includes striving for emotional ex- 

[202] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

pression and the most perfect development of rhythm imag- 
inable through physical activity. Children should be taught 
dancing before the sex-instinct becomes conscious, as an 
exercise of grace and joy in motion. 

The home ought to guard the character of the places and 
occasions where dancing takes place, the company that gath- 
ers and the costumes that are worn. It ought to be vigilant 
chiefly as to two matters: the character of the dancing schools 
and of the dance parties attended by its young people. It 
is perfectly feasible, as the author knows from experience, to 
arrange that nearly all dances attended by the young people 
of the home shall be in homes and shall include only per- 
sons with whom the parents are well acquainted. There is 
some relief to the situation in the revival of folk dancing 
and figure dancing and of the festival, and yet there is a sense 
of humor surrounding the childishness of ''sowing barley" 
and performing other primitive occupations to music which 
contrasts somewhat unfavorably with the elaborate appoint- 
ments and accessories of a home dancing party. There are 
many finer ways of spending the time than in dancing; a vig- 
orous and varied social life in the home may make it less 
necessary. On the whole, however, the author believes that 
there are perfectly psychological reasons for holding that 
dancing may be made a rehef to sex stress rather than a 
means for its excitement. 

The Theater 
The theater today is manifesting great power both to bless 
and to curse humanity. The American stage, completely 
commercialized, disgusts its friends as often as it does its 
enemies. The values of the drama, however, mentally, intel- 
lectually and morally, are so great that one should hesitate 
before prohibiting them to the young people in whom one 
feels an interest. It is quite possible by such advance re- 

[203] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

views as are published in the periodical Life and in the better 
metropolitan newspapers, for parents to know the character 
of the entertainments which are offered in local playhouses. 
Parents should, as far as possible, accompany their children 
to the theater, and if not, they should see the plays which 
their boys see or else know about them pretty thoroughly. 
A play which involves a disagreeable or objectionable scene 
may lose its unwholesomeness if it is talked over afterwards 
at home. Here comes the opportunity to discriminate to 
the child between fine acting and mere rant, between the 
underlying sophistry of a false situation and the feeUng of the 
thrill of a splendid moral climax. 

The theatrical situation in the average small American 
city is usually deplorable. The acting is second or third- 
class and the plays are either lurid melodrama or the refuse 
of the sex drama of Broadway. Of the two, melodrama is 
more desirable because, while it is untrue to real life, it satis- 
fies the emotional element in the boy and is generally moral 
to the very acme of propriety. Some parents make their 
annual visit to the great city a special opportunity of 
giving their children a treat of noble plays performed by 
noble players, thus creating a certain distaste in the child's 
mind for the local product, and preparing him for the 
best. 

Many boys prefer vaudeville to plays. They like the more fre- 
quent thrills and are interested in the trained animals and the 
jugglery. It is difficult for the adult to view this preference 
with complacence. The writer has occasionally dropped into 
one of the high-class vaudeville houses in the Central West at 
the Saturday matinee when it was crowded almost entirely 
with school children. Besides being bored by the sameness 
of the dialogues and monologues, he has frequently been 
pained at the exuberant applause at the m.ost inane and vul- 
gar jocularity. He has felt that the vaudeville house must 

[204] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

share the responsibihty with the comic supplement of the 
Sunday newspaper for the degradation of the sense of humor 
in our American youth. We must, however, in all frankness, 
recognize that the vulgarity was largely misunderstood and 
that the entertainment as a whole was a varied, ingenious and 
attractive emotional excitation, extremely grateful at the end 
of a monotonous week in school, and, on the whole, not ob- 
jectionable, if not too frequently repeated. 

The real problem just now, however, is the motion-picture 
show. The principal objection is that it plays upon the pas- 
sivity of the spectator. To its credit it should be said that it 
makes a powerful appeal to an eye-minded nation and that 
its possibilities as to broadening information regarding travel, 
biography, history and heroism are unlimited. It is plainly 
the duty of every parent to know the kind of motion pictures 
which his children are in the habit of seeing. The writer made 
many wearied journeys with his sons along one avenue where 
these brilliantly lighted places of amusement stand. He dis- 
cussed with them the virtues and vices of each and 
finally came to an understanding by which they learned 
to agree with him substantially as to the really worth 
while and to confine their patronage largely to such 
houses. 

In summary, then, the author feels that it is for the home 
to take a positive, though laborious, attitude toward the 
theater; for parents to study the places of amusement which 
are being frequented by their children as they do the books 
which they place in their hands, to select the plays and play- 
houses, to accompany their children invariably if possible, and 
to talk over conscientiously and inspiringly that which is seen. 
The writer believes that parents who do this will be rewarded 
in watching the development of their children's taste and in 
noting the acquisition in their lives of valuable intellectual 
and moral influences. 

[ 205 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

The Training of the Feelings 

In emphasizing the fact that the years between seven and 
fourteen are years for habit-forming and of self-control, 
many have neglected to note that they are also a time of imag- 
inative interests and of strong attachments. That these 
attachments are entirely to things of the present does not 
lessen, but perhaps increases, their vigor. The elements of 
personality in a grammar-school boy may be few but they 
are growing daily in distinctness. There is no more noticeable 
factor in such a personality than the capacity for enthusiasm. 

If the old Biblical proverb be true — and it certainly is, 
especially during these years — that "out of the heart are the 
issues of life," perhaps our highest and most neglected duty 
as parents with young boys and girls is the development of 
the heart life. Let us make a few suggestions. 

We may do much more than we think to develop a sense 
of beauty. Imaginativeness is naturally strong at the begin- 
ning of this period. It dwindles, not because it loses strength 
but because of lack of nourishment. How seldom do we 
think it worth while to call attention to those beauties of na- 
ture and art which enrapture us! The mother who will do 
this, even with a young child who seems unresponsive, is en- 
gaging in a process of education which is bound to be most 
fruitful. The child, for example, w4io visits an art gallery 
with his mother may not seem to be much impressed by the 
details of a picture, but upon his return he wdll recognize it 
with a certain fondness and remember a great deal of what 
she has said. Later his impressions will sink even deeper 
into his mind and form the basis of glad appreciation. 

The wild delight which children take in moving pictures is 
an almost pathetic expression of their love, not only for ad- 
venture, but also for beauty. Some recent figures show that 
a much larger proportion of school children care for pictures 
of natural scenery, flowers, beautiful objects, than for exciting 

[206] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

dramas. In Providence, R, I., for example, an investigation 
made among two thousand school children of the grammar 
grades showed that while three hundred and sixty-four in the 
fifth to the eighth grades preferred comedy, one hundred and 
thirty-nine dramatic films, fifty-three crime and seven hun- 
dred and thirty-five Western or cowboy pictures, nine hun- 
dred and seven preferred educational scenes. Many of the 
Western scenes are interesting because of their portrayal of 
nature or of animal life as well as because of their dramatic 
movement. W^e spoke above of a serious limitation of 
the moving picture as a form of education in that it in- 
volves complete passivity on the part of the child. In all 
other forms of education, as Dr. Samuel W. Dike has pointed 
out, we have been growing from passiveness to personal 
activity. Students no longer "attend" medical lectures or 
"sit" under teachers. They work in laboratories and discuss 
in seminars. An appreciation of beauty, and especially of 
moral beauty, which is to become effective must be active. It 
is not enough for the child to be played upon even by whole- 
some ideas or pictures. Walks, games, pastimes, amuse- 
ments and travel are far better ways of building up a vital 
interest in the real things of life. 

Because of the constant peril that the boy may remain 
passive, we are tempted to agree with C. Hanford Hender- 
son's extreme statement: "If I could be sure of having Jack 
with me during the high-school period, from fourteen to 
eighteen, I would much prefer that at fourteen he should not 
know how to read. As soon as a boy begins to read, he 
passes from the glorious world of first-hand experience and 
observation into the shabbier world of the second-hand, 
the world of the reported, and his life becomes less real and 
genuine. The more passionately fond of his books he is, the 
smaller the chance that he will, himself, do anything novel or 
useful. It is so much easier to have thrilling adventures by 

[207] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

proxy in the world of romance, history, travel, biography, 
science, than it is to observe and act for one's self, that I 
have slowly come to the conclusion that reading, instead of 
being the immense benefit it is reported to be, may all too 
easily become, like excessive church-going, a form of laziness 
and self-indulgence. I would prefer that Jack, at fourteen, 
certainly at twelve, should not know how to read, because 
I believe in the end he would make a wiser, bigger, more 
original man." 

Since this extreme opinion of reading is simply doctrinaire, 
in this age of universal books and periodicals our best re- 
source seems to be to place in the hands of boys reading 
matter that is thoroughly virile and dynamic. The writer 
has elsewhere adopted what has seemed to some a too- 
gracious attitude toward the nickel novel, explaining this by 
the statement that such literature, though highly colored and 
unreal, is of late usually innocuous morally and emphasizes 
the heroic virtues, besides possibly satisfying a certain pass- 
ing sensationalism in the boy's own life. The craze is a 
literary measles from which recovery is sure. So far as the 
home has to do directly with the boy's choice of reading 
matter it may best be of service by the establishment of the 
bo3^'s own library with interesting, well-illustrated books not 
too far beyond his present vocabulary and tastes and by 
subscribing for a few magazines of achievement, such as the 
Scientific American, Popular Mechanics and the Literary Digest. 
The home has an inhibitory duty also in banishing the yello-w 
newspaper and the popular erotic novel. After all, boys 
generally read literature that is better morally than that 
which their parents read. 

We do not find passivity in the matter of the child's feeling 
for strength. It sometimes seems as if that were one virtue 
which is appraised at its fullest by the growing boy. Some- 
what indiscriminating as his loyalty to strength may be, it is 

[208] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

intensely wholesome and he cannot have too much of it. 
It is notable that young people choose as their gang-leaders 
and heroes those who are dynamic — adventurers — who are 
able to do things. 

And as I have implied before, somewhat the same is true of 
his religious convictions. They may be simple but they are 
sound and they are gradually being based more and more 
upon irrefutable personal experience. 

This is not the age of penitence. Only as the moral life 
of adolescence dawns may we rightly expect any type of 
contrition. We may secure, if we try, the outward sem- 
blance, since the affectionate child is often deeply grieved 
when he finds that he has wounded the heart of one he loves, 
but the sentiment which he feels is rather that of personal 
attachment to the parent than personal abhorrence of sin. 
This being so, the most effective way to meet the sins and fail- 
ures of childhood is not by a storm of disapproval, but, as 
Henderson says, ''by enfolding the little troubled soul with 
one's own calm, unaccusing spirit." Then only is one master 
and able to serve. 

A more appropriate sentiment of these years is that of 
chivalry. Its expressions are often crude and are not always 
consonant with formularies of etiquette, but one rarely ap- 
peals to a boy in behalf of a weak sufferer without instant and 
eager response. 

Prof. G. Walter Fiske has summed up the religion of the 
school child, so far as it is a part of the life of feeHng, in 
the following excellent statement: "Certain elements of nat- 
ural religion, literal to children perhaps at ten years, are 
significant items in the childlikeness which Jesus praised as 
essential characteristics of the Kingdom of Heaven. Notable 
is the boy's instinctive faith in God and simple trust in God ; 
his clear acceptance of immortality as an axiom; his faith in 
the guidance of God and instinctive dependence upon it; his 

[209] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

intuitive knowledge of God as a living personal spirit, the 
Causal Agent and Source of Life at the heart of things; and 
also his honest conscientiousness. These are among the 
fundamental religious instincts of the human race. In their 
purest, simplest form, the child possesses them." 

There is, however, more than one side to the life of the 
child. The feeling side may seem that w^hich is most akin 
to religion because it is most distinctly touched with fine 
emotions, but if we have a broad faith in the beliefs we have 
been stating we shall see that a boy may love God just as 
truly with his body and his mind as with his heart. When, 
therefore, we seek to discover what is the real child, we miust 
ask not only what the child is Hke w^hen he is worshiping, 
but what he is like when he is playing or reading or talking 
with his friends. 



[210] 



CHAPTER XVII 
FACTS FOR ENCOURAGEMENT 

There is something almost sublime about the quiet, stolid 
way in which a boy, during these years of the common school, 
grows — bodily, mentally and morally. Because of the quiet- 
ness of his development, this period has not been studied as 
carefully as it deserves. We are coming to recognize, how- 
ever, not only that the mighty decisions of adolescence and 
the recoveries from prodigality which occur during that 
period are the result of habits formed during this, but also 
that the general tenor of life is more largely decided by what 
goes on during these years than by any other period of equal 
length during human life. It is encouraging to parents to 
reahze that even if they be conscious of no special ability, 
their steady, daily insistence upon a wholesome regimen of 
body and mind forms a veritable matrix in which the young 
spirit may come to birth. 

It is extraordinarily encouraging that one hardly ever 
needs to persuade a boy that he ought to do the right thing. 
"His conscience," as a practical student of boy life has re- 
cently said, "may not always act accurately, and may need 
training; but it usually acts powerfully and hardly needs 
reinforcement." 

"How noisy is the child! How still is childhood!" These 
words never appear more true than when we apply them to 
the years between seven and fourteen. Irritating and exas- 
perating even as are many of the personal habits of boys, 
they have very little to do with the undertow of the child's 
nature. Incapable sometimes of expressing himself in words 
if he should desire and not always characterized during these 

[211] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

years by adherence to custom or fashion, the normal lad yet 
shows a certain unspoiled candor and truthfulness which 
makes young children not only good to live with but good 
to live for. These are indeed springtime days for sowing, 
for cultivating, for watching green things appear above the 
surface. They are days when happy fathers and mothers 
may go forth with joy to the great V\^ork of planning for an 
abundant harvest. 



[212] 



SUMMARY 



SUMMARY 

The Parent's Attitude — The parent's best attitude is in an honest 
disposition of listening, involving as much as possible of foresight, in- 
sight, companionship and personal fitness. 

The Child's Attitude.— Until the child is about ten years old his 
attitude is one of respect for personal commands; after that of re- 
spect for law itself. There are, however, artful dodgers, obstinate 
not because of strength of will but because of mistaken will and of 
strong individualism, who are yet especially susceptible to the influence 
of sociability. 

Obedience. — The art of securing obedience during this period in- 
volves a process of treatment. 

Methods of Government. — Among the best methods of government 
are suggestion, explanation, persuasion, diversion, drill and activity. 

Government by Punishment. — Corporal punishment should recede 
into the background during this period. Punishments should involve 
the ernployment of choice. They should be as far as possible co- 
operative. 

More Methods of Government. — In general, choice is successor to 
obedience, because we are engaged in a process of will-training which 
begins now to get possession of the reason. Parent and teacher may 
well co-operate in methods of government. 

Sex Discipline. — The special problems of this period are to prevent 
the misuse of the sex organs by inspiring toward personal hygiene, to 
correct keen sex worries by frank instruction and to give such further 
information as may enlighten the boy without alarming him. 

Religious Nurture. — Habit-forming is one of the first religious prac- 
tices because it is a means of developing the will. The special habits 
to be persisted in are those of religious observance, Bible-reading, 
prayer, free and wholesome use of Sunday and service to others. The 
principal part of a child's religion consists of the daily doing of duty. 
He must now learn the majesty of obedience. In order to be good 
he must know what is good and also the technique of doing good ; 
therefore he must have practical ethical teaching. In his relations to 
others, whose influence may be very strong, he needs the companion- 
ship and protection of his parents. This is the most important time 
for training the feelings because "out of the heart are the issues of 
life." We must instill positive and active relations to goodness and 
help the child to do good because he likes to. 

References 

Books upon the Philosophy of Child Management 

The Education of the Child, 85 pp., by Ellen Key, published by G. P. 

Putnam's Sons, New York. 

This book consists of a single chapter taken out of Ellen Key's 

great book, "The Century of the Child," which has gone through some 

[213] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

twenty editions in Germany and has been successful in several other 
European countries. 

Our Boy, 126 pp., by Harry Edwards Bartow, published by the Union 
Press, Philadelphia. 

A small but adequate handbook on child-training, written from a 
father's standpoint. It is the only parents' book of which we know in 
which the various periods of child life are taken up in direct and 
definite order. 

On the Training of Parents, 141 pp., by Ernest H. Abbott, published 
by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 

This little volume contains a series of essays which mark out im- 
portant laws of child life and principles of child-training, illustrated by 
interesting personal narrative. 

That Boy of Yours, 250 pp., by James S- Kirtley, published by George 
H. Doran Co., New York, 

Discusses the morals, body, mind, religion, failings and home asso- 
ciations and brings all these things before grown-up eyes from the 
standpoint of the boy himself. In these days of the new view taken 
by social workers and educators in regard to boys and their tendencies 
and development, a book like this is sure to prove of value. 
Child Nature and Child Nurture, 102 pp., by Edward Porter St. 
John, published by The Pilgrim Press, Boston. 

No less stimulating and suggestive than the author's widely appre- 
ciated "Stories and Story Telling" is this new series of brief outline 
lessons designed to deal with some of the most important and practical 
problems that every parent must face. There is not a paragraph but 
is vigorous, with a broad, spiritual understanding and a strong common 
sense. Absolutely practical are the suggestions about dealing with the 
Punishment of the Child and the Training of the Child in a regard for 
the property rights of others. The pages are full of questions and 
suggestions which set in motion new and effective trains of thought. 

Books Containing Real Instances 
Bringing Up the Boy, 227 pp., by Kate Upson Clark, published by 
Thom.as Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 
A book long established in popular favor, characterized by its good 
sense. 

Making the Best of Our Children, the second series, 285 pp., by 
Mary Wood-Allen, M. D., published by A. C. McClurg & Co., 
Chicago. 
The second volume of the series of two contains a great many simple 
and clear suggestions as to child government, each of them upon con- 
trasted incidents out of real life. 

Child, Home and School, 307 pp., by Delia Thomoson Lutes, pub- 
lished by the Arthur H. Crist Co., Cooperstown, New York. 
The author remarks in her foreword : "The book presented to you 
under these covers does not seek to lay down rules. It offers sug- 
gestions, relates experiences and seeks to arouse responsibility, sense 
of obligation and thought. We have not advanced untried theories. 

[214] 



SUMMARY 

Experience speaks from each page, ofttimes bought at the price of 
tears and anguish, as experiences that are most valuable often are." 

Books upon Details of Child Training 
The Mother's Book, 323 pp., by Caroline Benedict Burrell, published 
by the University Society, New York. 
A compilation of varied value, but containing in its last one 
hundred and fifty pages an unusual number of common sense sug- 
gestions about many matters of home management. 
Social Development and Education, 433 pp., by M. V. O'Shea, pub- 
hshed by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 
Describes the process of social evolution by which the child learns 
to Hve with other people, and shows how the child's social relations 
affect the problems of home management. 

The Child's Day, 180 pp., by Woods Hutchinson, M. D., published by 

Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 
A book for children, but most desirable for the mother to read with 
the younger children in the home- It begins with the children's morn- 
ing and gives the most practical suggestions about exercise before 
breakfast, bathing and brushing, food habits, hygienic habits in school 
and the whole practical side of physiology and hygiene which a child 
has the opportunity to practice during any day of his life. 
The Children's Reading, 344 pp., by Frances Jenkins Olcott, published 

by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 
A most admirably comprehensive guide for mothers. It has chap- 
ters covering the entire realm of children's literature, each one with a 
good introductory portion discussing the place of a particular kind of 
literature in a child's life and then giving a carefully annotated list 
of books. Unique features of the volume are a list of one hundred 
stories and where to find them and a purchase list of books with prices. 

How to Enjoy Pictures, 290 pp., by M. S. Emery, published by the 

Prang Educational Co., New York. 
Although this volume of Miss Emery's was published fifteen years 
ago, there is still no better book for those who wish to learn how 
to appreciate all the fine points of a good picture. She studies pic- 
tures by theme rather than by period or school, which is the right 
approach for children. There is a chapter upon magazine illustrations, 
one upon the processes of reproduction and one upon school room 
decoration. There is an illustration with each picture studied. 
Nature Study and Life, 514 pp., by Clifton F. Hodge, published by 

Ginn and Co., Boston. 
The one best book to arouse an intelligent enthusiasm for nature- 
study. It has to do with all the common forms of animal and plant 
life, home-made cages, aquaria, aviaries, etc. 
Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium, 456 pp., 

published by the Macmillan Co., New York, by Jessie H. Bancroft. 

This book is a practical guide for the player of games, whether child 

or adult, and for the teacher or leader of games. A wide variety of 

[215] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

conditions have been considered, including schools, playgrounds, 
gymnasiums, adult house parties, etc. 

Books upon Sex Instruction- and Discipline 

From Youth into Manhool, 64 pp., by Winfield Scott Hall, M. D., pub- 
lished by Association Press, New York. 

Truths : Talks with the Boy, 95 pp., by Edith B. Lowry, M. D., pub- 
lished by the Forbes Co., Chicago. 

Confidential Chats with Boys, 162 pp., by William Lee Howard, 
M. D.. published by Edward J. Clode, New York. 

The Boy Problem. 16 pp.. by Prince A. Morrow, M. D., published by 
the American Federation for Social Hygiene, New York. 

For Boys Approaching Puberty. 4 pp., published by the Spokane So- 
ciety of Social and Moral Hygiene, Spokane, Wash. 

Books upon Religious Nurture 

Religion in Boyhood, 91 pp., by E. B. Layard, published by E. P. 
Button & Co., New York. 
A study from the English standpoint of the formation of character 
in boys up to twelve. Most of the suggestions apply to schoolboys in 
private schools. 

Principles of Character Making, 336 pp., by Arthur Holmes, pub- 
lished by J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. 
Our best recent discussion of moral education. Dr. Holmes makes 
a careful study of what constitutes character. He summarizes the view- 
points of modern psychology, goes deeply into the sources of char- 
acter, takes up habit-making and play, and gives a multitude of prac- 
tical suggestions as to methods by which sound ideas and habits may 
be evolved in the making of good manhood. 

Education in Religion and Morals, 434 pp., by George Albert Coe, 
published by Fleminqr H. Revell Co., New York. 
A broad and stimulating book. In the first part the author gives 
one of the clearest and most valuable summaries that has been made 
of the place of character-nurture in education. The second part is an 
unexcelled description of the religious impulse and development of a 
child. The third part describes our Christian institutions : The Family, 
the Sunday School and Church, Clubs, the Christian Academies and 
Colleges and the State Schools. In the last section the author sum- 
marizes the relation of the Church to the child and presents practically 
the present religious problem.s of education. There is a good biblio- 
graphy. This is, on the whole, for minister and parent the one most 
useful book upon religious education. 

The Church and Her Children, 229 pp.. by Henry Woodward Hul- 
bert, published by Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 
A study of religious training from the standpoint of the Church. 
There are, however, chapters upon the Bible, stories, music and 
prayers appropriate to children. 

[216J 



BOOK III 
THE HOME TRAINING OF ADOLESCENT BOYS 



CHAPTER XVIII 

DEVELOPMENTS OF ADOLESCENCE 

So much has been said about the critical elements in the 
changes that come with the high-school age that there is 
danger lest we become morbid on the subject. Our fears 
often get communicated to the young people themselves. A 
youth is said to have explained some defect in his life the 
other day by the self-conscious remark: ''You know I am 
passing through adolescence." Now adolescence is not a 
disease nor a diseased condition. It is on the whole the most 
glorious period of hfe, and if it does bring new moral Habil- 
ities, these are counterbalanced by the new moral resources 
that appear. With this outlook, let us try to find out how 
we may best strengthen and call into service these moral re- 
sources. 

In order to understand how best to deal with young people 
in the home, let us briefly summarize the condition in which 
we find our children at about the age of thirteen. 

Physical Development 
Physically there comes now a period of rapid growth, with 
girls from thirteen to sixteen and with boys from fourteen 
to eighteen or nineteen. This growth seems to come on in 
waves. The result is that the physical life consists of sea- 
sons of a sense of power alternating with seasons of pause and 
marked lassitude, often misnamed "laziness." The fact that 
the muscles and the bones sometimes have alternate spells 
of growth explains a certain self-consciousness, awkward- 
ness and looseness of carriage which is very common to this 

[219] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

period. There is a consciousness of new passions and pow- 
ers which is sometimes overwhelming. 

Emotional Changes 

The emotional Hfe now undergoes great and sudden 
changes. Instead of the apparent stoHdity of childhood, the 
mental energies, especially when physical growth and energy 
are near their flood tide, are most lively. The young person 
craves the intensifying of personal life even to the point of 
intoxication. He has discovered that wings are better than 
nests. He wants to be out nights and to be entertained 
constantly. He desires to live in a larger world than that 
which he sees around him. His parents seem to him, as 
Tyler says, to know 'Very little of the glories of life and of 
this exceedingly good world." The result is that the ideals 
and activities of the home often appear little and humdrum, 
and he desires to break away from parental authority. He 
is self-assertive because he is for the first time becoming an 
individual. While on this quest for himself he often feels a 
joyous defiance and engages in wild larks, injurious habits 
and reckless defiance to law which often get him into trouble. 
Because of his insistence upon individuality he seems to us 
to be absolutely selfish. To the adult his restlessness ap- 
pears to be simply contrariness. But the youth likes at this 
time to have all his doings taken for granted. He hates to 
be questioned, and sometimes he seems to enjoy giving the 
impression of having done something contrary to law or 
propriety by the romantic care he takes to cover up some 
trifling adventure. And if the youth be not bumptious, then 
morbidness (among girls) or shyness or shame and the in- 
ability to express himself (among both boys and girls) in 
turn cause him to be misunderstood. 

The characteristic emotion of this period is ambition. The 
child is making building plans for his whole life. He has 

[ 220 ] 



DEVELOPMENTS OF ADOLESCENCE 

an unlimited sense of power; nothing seems impossible. It 
is at times surprising to the youth that everyone else does 
not recognize his ability or agree with his judgments. The 
lack of relationship between a boy's ideals and any serious 
purpose to attain them is illustrated by the incident given 
by Dr. A. H. McKinney regarding the boy who had a dream 
that his first original work of fiction at once attained a cir- 
culation of one milHon copies. During the same week in 
which he told his dream, the father received a report from 
his teacher stating that the boy was deficient both in spelling 
and punctuation ! What need was there for such trifles as 
these as long as one could sell his writings so easily? 

The situation in which the growing boy finds himself is 
compHcated. For the first time in his life, due to his devel- 
oping individuality, he begins to be thrown upon himself. He 
discovers, somewhat to his dismay, that enlarged privileges 
are bringing him enlarged responsibilities. If he wishes, 
as he always does, to spend more money, his father insists that 
he earn more and be more strictly accountable for that which 
he has. He finds a great contrast between what he dreams 
and what he can really do when he wakes up and tries to 
make his dream actual. His lack of judgment and self-con- 
trol lead him into many costly experiments. Never were his 
self-expressions so enthusiastic — or so clumsy. He betrays 
his conceit and cannot help it. His humility over his blunders, 
failures and sins he keeps to himself. He becomes reticent. 

So even his ambition has its setbacks. He is subject to 
alternate waves and lulls of personal satisfaction. "If the sun 
shines today," as John M. Tyler says, *'it will always remain 
cloudless; if the maid of his adoration frowns, she will never 
smile again." He lives upon the Delectable Mountains or in 
the depths of the Valley of Humiliation — more frequently in 
the latter region than we suspect. 

Not only is the youth distressed by his mistakes and mis- 

[221] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

understandings, but he sometimes becomes discouraged 
when, during some one of the lulls in his growth referred 
to above, he suddenly feels a lack of physical or mental 
energy. At times, too, his old childish self seems to return. 
He is also sometimes haunted by fears due to ignorance of 
his physical nature or to misinformation which has come to 
him from surreptitious sources. 

Because of these sudden alternations of feeling the idea of 
himself which he holds now is strongly self-conscious. Never 
before has he recognized his own personality; never before 
has he been so conscious of his perils, never so frequently 
subject to the unusual feeling that there is something about 
himself that demands settlement. These alternations of joy 
and despair are accompanied by a certain suddenness of per- 
sonal development so that, as Kirtley says, his "expansion is 
by a series of explosions." Underneath all this apparent 
fickleness, there is what Dr. G. Stanley Hall calls "the pro- 
founder drift of his will," referring to the fact that below the 
surface billows or changing interests there is being felt the 
deep swell of a tidal life-purpose. The importance of this 
seething self-development is manifest. The boy's chief busi- 
ness now is, as J. W. Slaughter says, "his formation and pro- 
jection of ideals." We arrest that development when we 
endeavor to construct a building according to our own plan. 

This is a time of limitless interests. There is almost no 
subject in which it is impossible to interest an adolescent 
eagerly. His sense of potency is accompanied by the keenest 
and broadest intellectual interest, yet such is the fear of 
ridicule that both in and out of school the reserve of the 
youth often causes him to seem absolutely indififerent to 
topics upon which he feels the most intense curiosity. This 
strange reserve often creates an estrangement between him- 
self and his parents and teachers. This estrangement is 
often intensified by the fact that one interest succeeds another 

[ 222 ] 



DEVELOPMENTS OF ADOLESCENCE 

rapidly, and entirely displaces it. Naturally, the parent feels 
that the child is fickle and has no continuity of purpose. 

Because of his inability to see the practical relations of 
new intellectual subjects to his future and partly because of 
the poor adjustment of the school curriculum to his interests 
and needs, many a high-school pupil now loses enthusiasm 
for his text-books, becomes inattentive, fails in appHcation 
to his studies, hates school. Let us parents not think of our- 
selves more highly than we ought to think and be blaming 
the school teachers too much. ''It will probably never be 
an easy task for the school," says a sensible educator, "with its 
hours of impersonal mental application, to compete with the 
sex interests, the sporting interests, and the great complex 
of other social interests which make such an appeal to the 
adolescent. What a natural pull there is away from the 
humdrum! How can a boy who is feeling all the raptures and 
pangs of a first love hold himself down to the bromidic charms 
of Sir Roger de Coverley or to figure out on paper the 
velocity of falling bodies when he is all in a quiver to catch 
a three-bagger in the south field?" Many now want to go to 
work, partly to escape school and partly to earn money for 
their pleasures. Stealing, when it occurs now, is always for 
this latter reason. With boys especially there is often a 
wanderlust. 

Social Instincts 

The boy's feelings about others are by this time under- 
going a rapid series of changes. In the presence of those 
whom he knows and loves he manifests a new impulse to 
express himself, and a great deal of the boisterousness and 
self-assertion of these years is simply the endeavor of the 
child to let his adult companions know that he has arrived. 
The misunderstanding which his parents have of the mean- 
ing of this phenomenon, coupled with his new reticence con- 
cerning his discouragement, produces what parents have 

[ 223 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

frequently remarked upon when they say, ''Frank seems to 
have entirely changed in disposition nowadays." The change 
is not so much in the disposition as in the desire to express it. 

Both self-assertiveness and rebellion would be impossible to 
the ordinary youth if he had to do things alone. 'The one 
way," says Munroe, "in which he can bolster up his courage 
is to lean upon other boys like himself." Hence the arising 
of the ''gang" and the strengthening through this mutual 
support of whatever good and also whatever evil instincts 
each of the individuals may have. His blind following of the 
"gang" is emphasized because of his eager hero-worship, and 
the leader of the "gang" is no doubt his hero. It is also a 
peculiarity of this period that the youth when planning an 
action thinks not only of something as to be done but also 
of another person as witnessing the achievement. His pleas- 
ure is not only in the thing itself but also in the thought of 
how it will be viewed by others or by one particular person. 
This immensely limits the field of "things that the fellers do" 
and at the same time gives an unnatural glamor to efforts in 
particular directions. 

In the later adolescent years the social instinct— let us call 
it "the friendship instinct" — takes the special form of interest 
in the other sex. As girls mature physically a little earher than 
boys, they manifest this instinct sooner and with a frankness 
that is sometimes alarming to their parents. Prepared as 
they may be by reminiscence for the fact that this instinct is 
sure to come, they have forgotten that there is a time when 
the subject of boys is to a girl as young as thirteen the all- 
absorbing topic of conversation and even of thought. The 
interest is innocent and ignorant and is often as much a form 
of early feminine jealousy of the other girls as it is of genuine 
interest in any individual lad. The maladies of silliness and 
of "giggles" are chiefly due to the sex-interest. With boys 
first love is chivalrous and unselfish but equally blinding to 

[224] 



DEVELOPMENTS OF ADOLESCENCE 

any other object. Such preoccupation constitutes one of the 
most difficult problems of the period. 

At about the time when the boy begins to show his interest 
in girls, he is quite likely to desert his gang for a single chum, 
an action v/hich has been interpreted as an escape for pro- 
tection. He cannot endure the ridicule of his companions 
and he seeks sympathy from a comrade who is perhaps in the 
same case as himself. 

It is no doubt the fascinations of the gang and the delight 
of first love that partly explain the disregard of the home 
folks that has been mentioned above. 

Moral Awakening 

The keenness which the youth shows physically and men- 
tally is also most deeply manifest in the moral realm. The 
reHgious Hfe of an adolescent is at first largely one of feeling 
and later one in which thoughtfulness becomes predominant. 
During the era of feeling the growing boy or girl rises to 
heights of moral ecstasy. These, too, come on in rhythms, 
with lulls between. When the period of thoughtfulness 
arrives, there is often a break between the behefs of child- 
hood and those of maturity, and the religious experiences of 
youth, though in the main inspiring, are often poignant and 
disillusioning. Interest in religion does not always mean 
interest in church, and, partly because of physical restlessness, 
partly because church and Sunday school have not adapted 
themselves to his nature and partly because Sunday has been 
invaded by so many other occupations, many young people 
manifest a distinct dislike to going to church and Sunday 
school. 

Summary of Conditions 

The physical development, the emotional changes, the 
social stress and the reHgious crisis all together cause this 
to be a most unstable, misunderstood, and yet hopeful period. 

[225] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

The child now needs the sympathy, understanding and re- 
spect of adults as never before. The Psalmist said even of 
God: "Thy gentleness hath made me great." The facts that 
have been mentioned themselves suggest some of the main 
lines of action along which parents must move in the govern- 
ment of children. The quiet, stoHd years of childhood are 
over and the time for corporal punishment, scolding, and 
nagging is past. The child is not only ripening but harden- 
ing into the character which is to be his for Hfe. The time 
has come to make the transition from the management of 
the child by an adult to his own self-management. We 
exert our best influence now when we push from behind. 

In this period when the child is never calm the parent 
must be always calm. We can never afford to be disquieted 
when he is. Especially must we keep hopeful when he is in 
despair. At this age when we are perpetually being an- 
noyed by the superlatives, the shallowness, the moods, the 
unrestraint and the secretiveness of youth we must try, as 
Pufifer reminds us, not only to remember how we ourselves 
once acted, but how we once felt. It seems incredible, but it 
is true, that we once had the same impulses as our child 
has. If we have forgotten, our parents haven't. 

Now, when, as LeBaron Briggs wittily says, the youth 
wants to behave Hke a child and be treated like a gentleman, 
we have to be prompt with our forgiveness of his sudden, 
fickle tendencies, for if we do not forgive him when he is 
sorry, then he will soon not be sorry and will not care to 
be forgiven. Next to trust in God perhaps the chief virtue 
called for in parents now is a sense of humor. Next in 
commonness to the mistake of supposing that our children 
are exceptionally brilHant is that of supposing that they are 
exceptionally difficult. The chances are that they are neither. 
If you knew all that your neighbors conceal you would find 
out that they are sure that nobody ever had such hard chil- 

[226] 



DEVELOPMENTS OF ADOLESCENCE 

dren to bring up as they have. The fact is that all children 
of parts during this period are at times anti-domestic, "agin" 
the government, forgetful of their duty to their parents and 
even apparently dull in affection. All this is funny; if humor 
be the discovery of unexpected congruities in the incongru- 
ous, surely most of our experiences v/ith our changeable 
young people are that. 

This is also a time for renewed hopefulness. They were 
never so near the watershed that leads over into manliness 
and womanHness as now. They are also just about to be- 
come most enjoyable, for the first time in their lives showing 
themselves capable of being comrades on a level with their 
fathers and mothers. The parent must not expect much 
gratitude now from his child. He is too busy discovering 
himself to find out the sacrifices which his parents at just 
this time are making in his behalf. Yet, as Kirtley tells us, 
he hungers most for love and appreciation when he does 
not know how to receive it. Upon the completed building 
of childhood the youth is now adding an entirely new story, 
and our consciousness of the significance and beauty of the 
work must for a while be our only solace. 



[227] 



CHAPTER XIX 

METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 
Physical Management 

This is not the place for a full discussion of the physical 
problems of adolescence. Only so much ought to be said 
here as to suggest the relation of physical care to the whole- 
some home life of the young. 

During these years the young person not only has floods 
and ebbs of physical vigor, but he is often capricious in 
appetite, fond of new and strange foods, subject to new fads 
as to exercise, and especially likely to overdraw his bank 
account of bodily energy. We must try to continue a some- 
what steady regimen of food, exercise and sleep for this as 
yet unsteady spirit, in order to estabHsh a good constitu- 
tion and save the child from becoming physically bankrupt. 
Now is just the time when fond parents discover an unsus- 
pected talent for music or art in their daughters and insist 
upon adding ''practice" to the already overloaded hours. 
This, together with parties and the theater, is pretty nearly the 
end of some young folks, the drain of energy showing itself 
upon entrance to college if not now. The old adage, "Nine 
hours of sleep and a clear conscience," is not a bad one. 
While too much and too intense social life is fatiguing, we 
cannot deny that excitement in a moderate degree is expan- 
sive to the soul of a youth, somewhat as crying is to the 
lungs of a baby. Yet we ought to be able to limit the social 
life of high-school young folks chiefly to Friday evenings. 

In another chapter some suggestions are given concern- 
ing instruction and regimen regarding the sex-organs. Let 
us only remark here that it is equally important to remem- 

[228] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

ber and sometimes to remind the youth that his otherwise 
unexplained fluctuations and restlessness are closely associ- 
ated with his sex-development, so that he shall learn that 
they are not uncommon, and may not despair concerning 
himself. At this time, when the senses are more keen than 
ever before to color, sound and taste, when the lov.e of 
beauty in nature allies itself to the love of human beauty, 
when there is a mental awakening almost every day to some- 
thing that has always been seen or known but never appre- 
ciated, we may use the body as never before to help the soul 
upon its lonely way. "Much despondency and sense of sin" 
even, as Irving King reminds us, "is no doubt due to physical 
causes." And just here his advice is especially good, when 
he urges that we cure the introspection that is due to the 
new sensitiveness and consciousness of the flesh by giving 
the youth surroundings that are especially cheerful in tone 
and that furnish the stimulus to abundant and vigorous 
physical exercise. "He should have his attention turned 
outwardly as much as possible, cultivating interests in active, 
overt enterprises with other people, and avoiding the giving 
of attention to his own physical and mental states." Here 
is where athletics, wisely administered, comes to our rescue, 
the enthusiasm for personal prowess and for maintaining the 
glory of the school becoming a passion which, while not 
worthy of remaining as a life-purpose, nevertheless lifts above 
gross vices, precludes from morbid day-dreaming and tides 
the youth over to more serious interests. Many a young 
person is being kept in high school and college today by 
the desire to be "on the team," while unconsciously to him- 
self he is ripening more serious purposes. The heroic not 
only in relation to athletics but in relation to nature is help- 
ful here. This is the time for parents to encourage not 
merely ladylike nature study but camping, sailing, tramping. 
Now young persons respond to the sturdy zeal of old Ulysses 

[229] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

"That ever with a frolic welcome took 
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 

Free hearts, free foreheads 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 

In these days of bodily irritability, while he takes the most 
careful watch-care concerning his child's bodily development, 
the parent endeavors to overlook minor outbreaks and to 
concede gracefully as many of the smaller issues as possible. 
Everything that annoys us is not of equal significance, and 
the wise parent, hke a strategist, employs his heavy artillery 
only in an emergency. In order to keep the confidence of 
young people, the mother must be flexible. Mrs. Frances 
M. Ford wisely says: ''She must give way in some of the 
little things in order to strengthen her position in the 
greater matters to be decided, and to turn the argument 
around, I believe that if she. shows her sympathy and affec- 
tion and understanding, morning, noon and night, in respect 
to these little things, she will find herself quite able to cope 
with the larger ones and she will come out ahead." 



Management of the Emotions 
In the emotional realm the parent tries to help the child 
organize and interpret his changing experiences, meeting his 
doubts frankly and cheerfully, being patient with his sudden 
aversions and equally sudden fancies, and using praise much 
more generously than blame. While there is never a time 
when the child prizes good advice so little as during this 
period, he is so abjectly subservient to public opinion that 
he is grateful for all information concerning social usages, 
and usually responds, after a while, to the reiteration of the 
opinions of those whom he admires. It must be remembered 
that a very important preliminary to doing right is knowing 

[230] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

what is right, and we, perhaps, expect too much in this direc- 
tion. Skilful indeed is that parent who can succeed once in a 
while in slipping some counsel over his unsuspecting child. 

We need to learn to bear with much seeming impertinence, 
which is ignorant or unintentional. A very successful 
teacher of boys states that the recipe by means of which she 
got along with them was this maxim given her by an older 
friend: "A boy can't insult a woman (and he doesn't want to). 
Never let yourself doubt it." Think that over. 

We have said that the youth is never so clumsy in his 
expression or appreciation of affection as now, when he needs 
and desires it most. Remembering this, the home should 
redouble its affectionate manifestations. The welcome which 
awaited the child when he came into the world should await 
him every time he comes home. There are, as Kirtley tells 
us, "certain luminous hours — the home-coming hour, the 
meal hour, the play hour. On those hours life's high lights 
must gleam." Young persons seem especially sensitive now 
to certain regularities in the home festivals and reunions, 
assuming a fresh interest in the ritual of stocking-hanging 
and the tree at Christmas, insisting upon birthdays and other 
anniversaries and reminiscing with evident enjoyment about 
early homes and their joys. This interest is precious, and 
holds much content of family loyalty and pride. Parents 
and children will both hold these as most tender memories, 
and will always wish afterward that there had been more of 
them. 

Of course the seeming impertinence and the clumsiness in 
the expression of affectionate emotions and also much of the 
"contrariness" are largely due to the fact that the young 
people are often nervously "on edge." "I feel all right if 
you don't ask me," the hysterical girl's reply to an inquiry 
as to her health, is quite typical of the emotional situation 
during much of this period. 

[231] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Social Management 

In the social life of the youth we meet a varied and com- 
plex problem. At one moment we find it feasible to utilize 
emulation and stimulate him to imitate his hero. Again we 
crave the opportunity for him to be by himself so that he 
may learn to stand upon his own feet and think out his 
own thoughts. We often find it necessary to get the ''gang" 
on our side and to chaperon its activities so that they may 
be harmless. Having won its confidence, we find that the 
''gang" is potentially one of the best friends of parents in 
the home training of the children. 

The wise parent works with the "gang" and not against 
it. The child may be allowed an almost uninterrupted rela- 
tionship with his group so long as that relationship is 
conducted under wholesomxC conditions. This especially 
emphasizes the necessity of the young person's having a room 
of his own. "He needs it," says Kirtley, "in his business 
of being a boy. If he does not get it at home he always 
wants to establish headquarters somewhere else — on the 
street corner, or a vacant lot, or in another boy's home; 
which always lessens his attachment for his own home. His 
self-respect and social standing require that he have a place 
where he can bring his friends; if he brings them there, they 
will be in a respectable place and not be apt to get their 
relatives in trouble. He will be proud to have his parents 
become honorary or sustaining members of the club; that 
will give those parents a chance to take the sting out of all 
mischief and renew the joys of long ago. His room is a 
social center, training him for life." We believe there is 
scarcely a home where this is not possible. Since so many 
of the gang's activities are naturally in the evening, a 
basement may be used where there is no attic, and 
there are fascinating possibilities in sheds and "shacks" in 
backyards. 

[ ^Z^ ] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

Parents are sometimes concerned because their children 
at this period become completely fascinated with some other 
person, frequently of the same sex, so that the acts, thoughts 
and feelings of the admired individual are of more interest 
than anything else in the world. But this is at least better 
than extreme self-absorption. If the person be strong and 
well-rounded, nothing but good can result. And if the 
parent has reason to believe that the person is not strong 
and good, the case is by no means hopeless. A good general 
rule is that the parent should crave to know personally and 
in the home everyone whom his children like. In the home 
circle the unwholesome acquaintance loses much of his 
glamor; brought into competition there with unusually fine 
young persons, invited there for the purpose, he may lose 
it all. 

A word may perhaps be welcome concerning the proper 
attitude to take toward first loves. Here complete candor is 
desirable. Nothing could be more foolish than to joke a 
child about his fancy, because that is the surest way to make 
him secretive and to encourage him to continue his passion 
away from home. Invite the loved one to your own home, 
not of course in any guise than that of a schoolroom friend, 
and observe her well but kindly. Keep the acquaintance 
open and aboveboard. Try to know her folks, and get them 
to work with you in a mutual program. Friendships thus 
guarded may prove of life-long worth, or they may die a 
natural but innocent death. They cannot be hurtful. 'Tf 
we try our best to make the best of it, we take the worst 
out of the very worst of it." 

Now, more than ever before, we share the guidance of 
our children with others. They are at this time influenced 
about as much by the spirit of the "gang" as by ourselves. 
The influence of a particular chum may be even more power- 
ful than that of a parent. We have also to consider the 

[ 233 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

influence of the different ideas of parental control and per- 
sonal privilege shared by the other homes of the neighbor- 
hood, and also the general sentiment of the community as 
to what is proper for young people to do. Says Mrs. Ford, 
"If all the mothers of a certain set of society were agreed on 
certain standards, it would be easier for the individual mother 
to hold strongly to the ideal of conduct or attitude, whatever 
it may be. Why can't you strengthen the backbone of the 
mothers of the community? Thoughtless mothers make 
things hard for the rest, and I believe that the thoughtful 
mother who gives herself to the work of a good sensible 
mothers' club is thereby saving time and work and perplexity 
for herself." 

It is a curious fact that young people are independently 
thoughtful religiously before they are socially. This means 
that they begin to form their ideals before they do their 
code of daily conduct. There sometimes follows a certain 
inconsistency between the two. The child may be splendidly 
encouraging to us as to his purpose, and yet discouraging in 
his actions when with his crowd. We must be patient until his 
actions begin to catch up zvith his ideals. 

Although we have used the word ''government" in the 
title of this chapter, our task during this period is really to 
guide rather than to govern. We have now the perilous 
but important privilege of transferring authority from our- 
selves to our children. This transfer is less dangerous in 
the homes where provision has been made for it. In a 
previous chapter we spoke of the necessity of filling the 
treasure house during the years of fullness for the years of 
famine that are to follow. The child should by this time be 
in possession of a treasure house of good habits, of family 
traditions, of good ideals that have been crystallized by books, 
of good examples lived by his parents and friends, and by the 
inspiration of living and dead heroes. Out of this treasure 

[ 234 ] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

house his Hfe should be fed as he starts on his pilgrimage into 
maturity. 

It would seem that, in a well-regulated family, while it is 
not desirable that one's life should be directed in all things 
by rule, yet some things should by this time have come to 
be pretty definitely fixed, as regards the daily program and 
the kind of behavior that shall be permitted under various 
circumstances. It is true that even in following out the old 
habits a new spirit begins to be discernible. The girl con- 
sults her mother less about the details of her toilet and the 
boy shuns the old-established, sympathetic intercourse. Even 
in the realms of habit there is manifested a growing individ- 
uality that makes the youth feel that he must now take 
charge of his own life. "If," says a wise adviser, "the mother 
can. only be wise enough to let go of the arbitrary hand of 
parental authority and grasp with the gentle hand of kindly 
sympathy, she will find the grasp firmer, surer, and stronger 
with the passing years." 

The limits of habitual action during these years should 
be not so much the judgment of the parent as the rights 
of others. So long as the young person is not making 
himself a nuisance to the rest of the family a good many 
acts may be permitted which cannot possibly do any harm 
except to himself, and which, perhaps, will hardly do that so 
long as they teach him the wiser way. Under this head 
perhaps comes the matter of clothing. Many a mother is 
distracted between a son who wants to go out in all weathers 
meagerly clad and a daughter who wants to dress unsuitably 
for a young maiden. She feels that she may take some risks 
with the boy, whose warmer temperature and greater re- 
sisting power will probably defend him from physical harm, 
but she prays for the day when the daughter may have sense 
and perception enough to see that the best charm of a 
maiden is not that she be gaudily conspicuous, but that she 

[235] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

look like a child as long as possible. For this latter case 
no wiser word can be said than that of President Stanley 
Hall: "Broaden by retarding.'' 

One effective method of establishing happiness in a home, 
by mutual limitation of annoyance to others, is to call all the 
members together and form a partnership, with father and 
mother as the senior members of the firm, each child being 
apportioned some particular work which contributes directly 
or indirectly to the comfort of all the others. One contract, 
which was drawn up in an actual home, is quoted by Mrs. 
Birney: 

" 'We, the undersigned, love each other with all our hearts, 
and we want to do all we can to make our home the happiest 
place in the world. We will try always to be patient, kind 
and thoughtful, and to do cheerfully, and to the best of our 
ability, whatever our part of the household work may be. 
We will try to close the doors after us in winter, and not 
to bang the screen doors in summer, to remember to use 
the doormat in muddy weather, to keep our things in order, 
to put the hammer back in place,' etc., etc. 

''On occasion children are delighted with a certain amount 
of form and ceremony, and pleasure will invariably be de- 
rived from the drawing up of the contract, its imxpressive 
reading by father or mother, the discussion of it with further 
suggestions from the children, its final adoption by a unani- 
mous vote, and lastly, the affixing of signatures, even the 
four-year-old having his hand guided, his name appearing 
in big, scrawly letters which differentiate it for practical rea- 
sons from the other signatures. 

"Once a week the contract should be read aloud to the 
assembled family; no one should ever publicly be accused 
of having failed to live up to its spirit, but it should be 
tacitly understood on such occasions that acknowledgment 
and apology should be made for specifie shortcomings dur- 

[236] 



METHODS OF GOVERNMENT 

ing the week past; that is, such shortcomings as affected the 
entire or even great part of the family." 

Another mother, of whom Mrs. Kate Upson Clark tells, 
appointed each morning one of her children "captain of the 
day." "The captain of the day was helped always first at 
table, the next younger was helped next, and so on, until the 
circle was completed." This captain took charge of the dis- 
cipline during the day. "The idea of his responsibility is so 
fully impressed upon him that it is rarely necessary to inter- 
fere with the captain's discipline." 

With an adolescent boy or girl this partnership of sympathy 
may wisely extend to confidences regarding the family con- 
cerns and anxieties. "Watch the youth of fourteen," some- 
one says, "when his judgment is asked relative to some home 
arrangement; and if it is possible for you to agree with his 
suggestions, isn't it worth your tact and patience as you 
notice the glow of ambition and pride written all over the 
boy, as he realizes that he has actually formed one of the 
advisory board?" 

Mere habit of course is helpless in solving the new situa- 
tions of adolescence. But by this time there should also be 
some gathered strength of will. Someone has defined char- 
acter as the sum of our choices. The young person who by 
this time has not only done the right because he has been 
obliged to, but has for some years consecutively chosen to 
do the right, is in a position not to be overwhelmed by the 
new consciousness and powers that are now his. 

Moral Relations: Will 
Our greatest opportunity is in the guidance and education 
of the will. Fundamentally what all this turmoil and change 
indicates is this: The will is coming to birth. We dare not 
slash at it ruthlessly lest we destroy its vigor; we cannot let 
it grow wild lest it becomes dangerous. We believe with 

[237] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

President Stanley Hall that the will is really a compound of 
our interests and we crave that the child shall carry the 
fresh enthusiasms of youth into the sober days of maturity. 
'The whole pedagogy of adolescence," says Dr. E. G. Lan- 
caster, **is to inspire enthusiastic activity." We, therefore, 
quietly drop the Vvord ''don't" from our vocabulary. We 
endeavor to keep the youth active ; give him something to 
do, with us, day and night. We give him his religion even 
in affairs of doing rather than of believing, and we make 
the transfer of responsibihties from ourselves to our children 
just as fast as it is safe to do so. 

Every youth should do what he wishes part of the time, 
but should be definitely directed part of the time and should 
always have something besides himself to occupy his atten- 
tion. "Something in which he is interested," says Kirk- 
patrick, "that stimulates him to achieve, even though not 
valuable in itself, is absolutely necessary. All sorts of stunts 
and fads may thus temiporarily serve a useful purpose." Do 
we realize what a wholesome part physical training and 
athletics may have as time-fillers and outlets for otherwise 
aimless and unregulated energy? In the athletics of a well- 
conducted high school, which are not only accepted but 
actually regulated by the school faculty, we have a direct 
antidote for the soft sensuahty of the age, a direct stimulus 
to school loyalty, a corrective to idle day-dreaming, a stimu- 
lus for scholarship, and a broadening influence by the travel, 
the business experiences and the sportsmanlikeness which 
are exercised in different ways through interscholastic 
competition. 

Even better is some form of work or some little enterprise 
of business, because it is productive. A boy who has learned 
the value of a dollar by earning it is not so Hkely to get 
into moral difficulties as one who regards his father as a 
depository. 

[238] 



CHAPTER XX 

RULING MOTIVES 
We must realize that we are now dealing with a creature 
who is beginning to get up speed under his own motive 
power. In these years when this motive power still needs 
guidance as well as stimulation, we have to find out what 
this power is like. What are the ruling motives during 
adolescence? One of them is 

Self-respect 
There is nothing that the young person dreads more than 
to be ridiculous. This explains his absolute determination 
to have his neckties and clothing of the extremest mode of 
which he has seen examples in his young circle. This also 
explains why his "gang" is to him public opinion, for it is 
the voice of what seems to him the highest tribunal. We 
may take advantage of this motive, even though it be not 
the highest one. It is a potent help toward cleanliness and 
neatness of person. It assists the child in learning social 
graces and in practising the outer signs of courtesy. So far 
as it conventionaHzes his conduct it delivers him from the 
more brutal vices, and if the motive can be Hfted to the 
level of the respect which a gentleman owes himself, it 
makes the child immune to the lower temptations, for, as 
President Stanley Hall tells us: "Of all safeguards honor 
is the most effective at this age." This is a good time in 
which to appeal to the pride of clan, to tell the stories of 
ancestors who were brave and pure and courtly, and to set 
up a standard for the family beneath which no member of 
it will care to fall. The school teacher finds that pride in 

[239] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

the school is one of the most potent motives of student 
discipline. 

''My children always sing better," the father of the Peet 
family of concert singers used to say in pubhc, "when they 
are applauded." All lives give better music when they are 
praised. No matter what may be the perturbations in a par- 
ent's heart, he must steadily retain the attitude of expectancy 
for his child. No matter how much the child may become 
discouraged concerning himself, and during the moody 
years of adolescence there are many days of utter despair, 
the parent will always insist to him that, no matter how 
many mistakes or failures he may make, he is going to 
come out all right. More youths have been saved by feel- 
ing beneath themselves the solid rock of confidence of a 
parent than by any other one fact. *Tt is," says Orison 
Swett Marden, "a very dangerous, wicked thing to destroy a 
child's self-faith." Children are very easily discouraged. 
Some of the most hopeful children develop very slowly, 
while some brilhant children show, during the process of 
development, very trying traits. While overpraise is as bad 
for a child as utter neglect, appreciation of the effort and 
enthusiasm shown by the youth at playing the violin, at mak- 
ing some little composition or some mechanical device, may 
be just the inspiration needed to bring forth a nascent talent 
to the sunshine. 

In his "Mind in the Making," Dr. Edgar J. Swift gives us a 
striking catalog of instances, many of which are familiar, of 
men who became great who showed little promise during 
adolescence. Charles Darwin was "singularly incapable of 
mastering any language." His father told him he would 
be a disgrace to himself and his family. Napoleon Bonaparte 
stood forty-second in his class at the military school, but 
who were the forty-one above him? Patrick Henry "ran 
wild in forests Hke one of the aborigines and divided his life 

[ 240 ] 



RULING MOTIVES 

between dissipation and the languor of inaction." So little 
ability did Sir Isaac Newton show that at fifteen he was 
taken out of school and set to work upon a farm. Lord 
Byron succeeded in reaching the head of his class only oy 
inverting the proper order so that the most ignorant were 
temporarily placed first. Oliver Goldsmith's teacher "thought 
him one of the dullest boys that she had ever tried to teach." 
Henry Ward Beecher was a "poor writer and a miserable 
speller, with a thick utterance and a bashful reticence that 
seemed like stupidity." One simply cannot afford to prophesy 
failure for a hoy who has not found himself. 

Hero-worship 
Another ruling motive is that of hero-worship. "Every 
man," someone has said, "is some boy's hero." Many a boy 
who would almost fight at the impHcation that he is a "good 
boy" is quite wilHng to show any of the qualities that charac- 
terize the man he admires, who may chance to be one of the 
best of men. The youth is now a loyal St. Christopher, 
searching for his strongest master. A great privilege for the 
father is to be his own son's or daughter's hero during these 
impressionable years. You can guide a youth, Kirtley tells 
us, in the course you want him to take by the interest he 
takes in those who are going that way. What an extraordinary 
personality must have been that of Mike Murphy, late athletic 
coach at the University of Pennsylvania, who could say to the 
men of a losing football team between halves, "If you can't 
win for the sake of Penn, if you can't win for the sake of your 
mothers and sweethearts, go into the game and win for me!" 
They won the game. How many men do you yourselves 
know who could say a thing Hke that and not be laughed 
at? That such a man should live and not only talk so but be 
followed to victory is not at all incredible to your adolescent 
son. He has just felt that way toward some man himself. 

[241] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IX THE HOME 

Was Dr. Slaughter too emphatic when he said, "The chief 
value of great men is to fertilize the imagination of adoles- 
cents"? He was saying that heroes have not appeared in the 
world's history at random. They are the final expression of 
various vocational types — the sailor, the soldier, the engineer, 
the adventurer, the man of affairs. Thus they connect them- 
selves with the interests of childhood, and inspire children 
and youth to follow them. It is of distinct advantage if we 
can bring our offspring into either personal or imaginative 
relations during adolescence with men who are leaders, par- 
ticularly in the vocational fields toward v/hich our children 
themselves seem inclined. Even better is it that they should 
know a man or woman who is grandly following one of the 
idealistic callings. Some of us have felt that it was asset 
enough for such a life as his that Dr. Grenfell should com.e 
to the States every other winter from his heroic work in 
Labrador, simply that our young people might meet him and 
grasp his hand. 

In reply to the question, ''How can I gain the confidence of 
my daughter?" a wise mother has answered, "Never, never 
lose it; retain it, give sympathy, enter into all her plans and 
sympathize in all her trials ; these may seem small to you, but 
they are her trials; and when you do not approve, do not be 
too stern and drive her from you; a word of advice and counsel 
will do more good than scolding and prohibiting." So anxious 
are parents both as to the good conduct and the good reputa- 
tion of their children that nearlv all need that admonition 
which is more required during this period than any other: 
Don't nag. It is hard to endure in silence the noisy turbu- 
lence, the ungoverned expressions of passion, the thoughtless 
and selfish conduct of this era, but the parent can never hold 
a large influence over his growing child by being little himself. 
It is the parent who retains a certain large, tolerant attitude 
toward his child who reaches that happiest of all periods, the 

[242] 



RULING MOTIVES 

time when the young man or woman actually wants the coun- 
sel of his parents. It is perhaps fortunate that during adoles- 
cence all boys and many girls tend to turn from their mothers 
to their fathers. Men, because of their broader daily expe- 
rience, are supposed to look at things in a larger way, and 
the father who appreciates his privilege ought at this time to 
be in a position to be trusted and depended upon as never 
before. 

There are some possibilities in calling the attention of our 
children to the finer traits in the leading members of their 
"gangs" or sets. The appeal of the Bible now more than any 
other period is that of heroic biography. 

Responsibility 
Another ruling motive is that of responsibility. Many a 
boy will do work well if he is in charge of the job. Now, 
more than ever, we should give very young people chances to 
use their sense. This is perhaps the place in which to em- 
phasize the value of dealing fairly with our children in finan- 
cial matters. In many homes there is no definite understand- 
ing as to what money shall be given to the children; in others 
the small allowance of earlier years has been continued, the 
parent carelessly thinking that it represents as much as the 
child ought to spend on his pleasures. The result is that when 
the boy or girl wishes any special indulgence he goes to his 
father, who responds according to his mood or immediate 
ability; then he holds up his mother for the rest. The father 
feels consciously that he is not handling this as he does other 
financial matters, the mother recognizes her weakness in 
yielding to entreaty, and the youth feels that he has been 
treated like a little child. The writer is very strongly 
convinced, both by theory and experience, that the only 
proper way to treat a child in the home is to give him a 
weekly allowance, which will be one fifty-second of the care- 

[243] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

fully estimated cost of the child's needs during the year, 
exclusive of board and such accidents as doctor's bills, to be 
paid over to the child without question every week. By 
this method the child gets an opportunity to learn the value 
of money by having enough to learn the value with. We do not 
teach children to swim in the bathtub, and we do not send them 
to school without text-books; yet we expect them to learn the 
uses of money without money. The author recalls his first 
experience with this plan with mingled pleasure and amuse- 
ment; he remembers how, as a result of his first experiment 
his second son refused advice regarding the matter of the pur- 
chase of a suit of clothes, and came back from town with 
raiment so loud in color that the dogs in the street fairly 
barked in derision. The experiment was not such an ex- 
pensive one, since the suit was not entirely inappropriate for 
everyday wear. The next time the boy eagerly sought the 
advice of his father, and now he can choose his clothes more 
wisely and more carefully than his parent. 

The value of this plan is more than that of a device, for 
it is really a principle. The child, partly because of his own 
preciousness and partly because he is of some real financial 
value to the home, deserves to be recognized as a sort of part- 
ner. What he receives should not be doled out as a sum given 
an infant, but a fair share of the family income should be his. 
In return for this he should, of course, perform his share of 
service. What that service shall be should be put in the 
form of a contract at the time he begins to receive his income. 
The receipt of this allowance, like his father's receipt of salary, 
should depend upon his fulfillment of this contract. It is 
astonishing how far-reaching are the effects of this plan. It 
applies not merely to financial affairs but to the determination 
of other questions. The matter of money is so closely inter- 
twined with all a young person's pleasures and problems that 
the placing of the youth upon his own responsibility and 

[ 244 ] 



RULING MOTIVES 

honor works out many difficulties of a varied character. 
The writer can recall hardly any instance during the last four 
years when it has been necessary for him to interfere arbi- 
trarily in any matter in which his children's decisions were 
involved. He has often overheard, some evening, part of a 
telephone conversation in the room adjoining his living-room, 
in which it was apparent that one of his sons was receiving 
an invitation to a party. The reply would be, "Hold the line 
a moment until I look at my book to see if I have a date." 
The book to which he referred was, of course, his account 
book. Sometimes he would reply regretfully that he found that 
he did have an engagement; again the answer would be a glad 
acceptance. But sometimes an even wiser answer would be 
given. ''Wait until I see you tomorrow morning, and I will 
tell you whether I can go or not." This meant that there was 
money in the treasury, but that the boy wished to think over 
night whether the pleasure was worth while. The father 
found that all things were being measured by this criterion: 
"Is it worth while?" As soon as the child begins to judge by 
this standard he is an adult in reason and may be safely 
trusted in the major part of his own decisions. 

As to the question whether young people should now 
be paid for tasks performed about the house, the writer finds 
himself in hearty agreement Vv^ith Kirtley: 

"To some extent his work ought to have material remunera- 
tion. Often he wants no more than the pleasure of helping 
and the appreciation he deserves. Those two rewards must 
never fail to come. If there is no form of interest he can take 
in his work, it will become only eye-service. 

"It is of the highest importance that he receive some of 
the rewards in order to gratify and train his sense of owner- 
ship and responsibility, to satisfy his sense of right and to 
secure the uncoerced co-operation of his will. The sharing 
may be in indirect ways. Even if his part goes back into the 

[245] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

common fund for the support of the family, he is usually 
willing, provided he can have the pleasure of being in the 
combine, and can retain his sense of freedom. 

"His ownership of his earnings is to be recognized, 
even though he is not to be left without instructions as to 
the way he should handle them. Habits of thrift must be 
taught both in the work done and in the care taken of his 
possessions." 

Let us beware, however, lest the only times that we are 
serious with the boy should be when we are urgmg him to 
"make a success" in the sense of making money. Really, 
getting a lot of money is by no means a part of religion, and 
only the home which believes and teaches what the main 
business of life is to be, is the home that can give a youth a re- 
ligious basis for living. 

It is hard for us to realize, as President King says, that 
"one of the inalienable rights of every human being is the 
right to make at least some blunders of his own." It is the 
rather startling theory of Gerald Stanley Lee that some 
people are prevented by reading of sins in books from com- 
mitting some of their own. It may be that some of the faults 
of youth have a similar immunizing value in forestalling more 
serious deeds that otherwise might be committed later. In 
learning to swim VvC expect a boy to begin by floundering; 
nevertheless we put him in the water; in learning to play 
baseball or golf, we expect him to miss the ball; nevertheless 
we put into his hands the bat or the stick. We do not, how- 
ever, show a similarly free willingness for actual experiment 
in other matters of choice. The boy wants to go to places 
where his parents feel they cannot permit him to go; other 
boys go, why not he? Is it not time that he was taught self- 
government? Soon they cannot prevent him, as in the past, 
by simply prohibiting. "Would it not be wiser to say," as an 
experienced mother suggested, " 'Now, my son, it is time you 

[246] 



RULING MOTIVES 

learned to decide for yourself. Only a few years, and you 
must go from under the parental roof. Then mother and 
father may not be near to decide for you, even if you desire 
it, as no doubt you often will, so I shall not say you cannot go, 
but leave you to decide. You have perhaps had better teach- 
ing than some of the boys you mention; if so, more will be 
required of you by the hand of God. I have confidence in 
you, and believe you want to do right. I shall be glad to 
advise you, but must leave you to decide.' By this course 
you may teach him a lesson in self-government, which is so 
frequently neglected. When your boy gets from under 
restraint, never having exercised the power of self-govern- 
ment, of self-control, he goes into vice, and we wonder 
why the children of good parents should turn out so 
badly." 

We have advocated during the earlier periods of childhood 
some measure of natural penalty. We must still trust our- 
selves, and our children to some extent, to this method. 
Since we can no longer punish the child, we must allow him to 
punish himself. While it sometimes seems to us that the 
results of his conduct in pain or loss of reputation are serious, 
they are bound to be less serious than if he made those 
mistakes later — as he is bound to do if he does not learn self- 
government now — when he is away from home. 

The youth who objects very much now to the destruction 
of his own property by a younger brother or sister or play- 
mate is prepared to recognize the fairness of paying for 
breakages which he causes himself, or accepting a financial 
fine for certain inconveniences which he causes to others. It 
is well, as far as feasible, to have some preliminary under- 
standing or arrangement to whose justice the child will con- 
sent. It must be remembered that an allowance is inviolable 
and that once it is promised or given the parent has no right 
to take it away without the child's consent. 

[247] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Here is another argument for giving a boy a room of his 
own. He needs a sanctuary, a place to be by himself where 
he can think out his long, long thoughts, a chance to get out 
of the influence of his gang and even of his parents, so that he 
may become a personality. Through the decoration of his 
room he can objectify his own thoughts, expressing his grow- 
ing ideals through the articles, both useful and ornamental, 
with which he fills it. Here in hours of overstress he can let 
off steam and make more noise than could be borne in any 
other part of the house. He will be fairly quiet everywhere 
else if he knows that there is one room always at his disposal 
for free self-expression. A boy as well as a girl sometimes 
wants to cry, and he ought to have the privilege of a wailing- 
post in solitude. 

The youth is brought to full individuality chiefly by the 
exercise of responsibility. "The majority of people who have 
been of the greatest service in the world," says Mrs. Birney, 
''are those who are capable of taking responsibility." 

Chivalry 
The youth who hardly seems mature enough to accept 
responsibility for his own self proudly assumes the responsi- 
bility of caring for one younger and feebler. It is, perhaps, 
hardly ennobling for a woman to make an appeal other own 
weakness, but a boy is always inspired when she appeals to his 
strength on her behalf. The teacher in school, the leader in a 
summer camp, and the parent in the home find that the youth 
who is asked to be responsible for the w^elfare of little folks 
seldom deserts or betrays his trust. 'Tf he would be 
masterful, overbearing and pugnacious," says Munroe, 
"put him in charge of weaker or smaller boys, making 
him responsible for their safety, and, unknown to him, 
those wards of his will protect him far more than he will 
them." 

[248] 



RULING MOTIVES 

A Life Purpose 

Gradually out of individuality grows a life purpose. The 
reader may not at first agree with that strong statement of 
President EHot's: "The career-motive holds more spiritual 
content than any other." Yet interpreting the phrase 
broadly, is not this true? As soon as the youth has seized 
the helm of his own hfe, does he not find that he has repeated 
that critical experience which came to Robert Louis Steven- 
son when he said, reverently, that, after a restless youth, try- 
ing to master himself, he came at length "right about" and 
discovered that he had been in charge of "the helmsman, 
God"? 

"It is not of so much consequence," says President Hyde, 
"what a boy knows when he leaves school, as what he loves." 
May not a part of the meaning be that his interests, his choice 
of a vocation, his friendships, his religious purposes, all that 
constitute his Hfe-ideal, are worth more than all his book- 
knowledge? 

Combination of Motives 

Let us not think that these ruling motives are like a set of 
push-buttons which when pressed in turn release certain cur- 
rents of activity. They are rather like the notes of a piano, 
and the wise parent-player finds that he can make music by 
playing them in chords. Felix Adler instances the virtue of 
cleanliness, which he says we may arrive at by appealing at 
one time to the aesthetic instinct, at another to the prudential, 
again to the motive of self-respect, to sympathy, and some- 
times to two or more of them at once. They all, he says, 
"say Amen! to the moral" instinct. 



[249] 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE PRODIGAL 

The Situation axd Its Causes 
Some children endowed with exceptional vigor and pre- 
cocity do not yield readily to the governmental methods that 
have been suggested. The play spirit seems to have gone 
wild. They may be living in a world of baseless romance. 
Keenly desirous to know the world, with the passions of a 
man and the self-restraint of a boy, the vigor of a man and 
the judgment of a boy, such an one is ripe for any course of 
conduct which suggests itself to him. He may play truant 
constantly or drop back of his grade in school ; he may run 
away from home; he may at home or elsewhere become dissi- 
pated; in any case, he is likely to enter into m.any changes, 
perhaps failing in one school after another or in one position 
after another and showing a discouraging lack of aptitude for 
anything in particular. 

While this is the period when the boy naturally turns to 
his father rather than to his mother for complete under- 
standing, the writer is persuaded that m^ore prodigality is 
caused by alienations of sons from careless and unregarding 
fathers than by any other one thing. ''What shall I do," 
pathetically wrote a lad of thirteen to m.e the other day, '"'to 
get my father interested in baseball? There doesn't seem to 
be anything we can talk about together, and as you can imag- 
ine we are not very good friends." It is not hard to prophesy 
the tragedy that will probably soon come in the future of 
that youth, just entering upon the most trying years of his 
life, when he is, so far as sympathetic fellowship is concerned, 

[250] 



THE PRODIGAL 

a half-orphan. How pungently Dr. Arthur Holmes pictures 
a common situation of the adolescent boy: 

"He wants to do, in nine cases out of ten, exactly what his 
fond father wishes to save him from doing, exactly the things 
his father counts his own youthful errors : to play exactly the 
games and to have the toys his wise parent now considers a 
waste, an absolute waste of juvenile time that might be em- 
ployed in learning something useful, something that would 
eventually enable the boy to gain a larger place amongst his 
future adult fellows or possibly secure for himself a Httle 
more of the world's goods. The untutored father cannot for 
a moment imagine that success in life can be measured in 
terms of a boy's world; is utterly oblivious to the fact that a 
boy is an individual ; that he has a real world of his ovv^n ; that 
in that world he has as much moral right to succeed in his 
way as his father has to succeed in his world in his way. The 
father does what he instinctively feels is right; the boy wants 
to do what he feels instinctively is right. The father is bursting 
with ambition to make himself a place in his world ; the boy 
is bursting with ambition to make himself a place in his 
world. The friction comes about because the father is fool- 
ish enough to wish to impose his instincts upon the instincts 
of the boy. He will forever insist that it is possible to put 
an old head on young shoulders." 

Most parents who misunderstand their sons have only a 
vague impression that they are disappointing; they are seldom, 
able to take the lad's viewpoint and realize that constant 
antagonisms have developed in his mind into active animosity. 
It is the tragedy of youth that it is extreme, and many very 
good parents, whose only fault has been lack of insight, would 
be broken-hearted to learn that their children had ceased to 
feel affection for them. The writer has in mind a man whose 
parent had failed only once in appreciation of the son's motive, 
but in a matter of the greatest moment, who testified that 

[251] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

from that time omvard that parent's influence became a 
nonentity in his Hfe and that thirty years afterward he was 
unable entirely to check the sense of repugnance which he 
had always carried. Such entire breaks are, fortunately, usually 
temporary, but they often last through the years when young 
people are most in need of loving and wise adult influence. 

The attitudes of parents which most frequently cause 
alienation between them and their sons are two, and they are 
so simple that they might easily be avoided. One is that of in- 
tolerance — of regarding the boy, who is very likely something 
of a hero in his own circle, as an outlaw whenever he enters 
the house ; and the other is that of stubbornness — of being 
unready to do that most fair but difficult thing, apologize to 
the boy when one is wrong. 

When a young person is in the frame of mind described at 
the beginning of this chapter, no matter what the cause or 
occasion, what shall be done wnth him? 

Shall He Be Put to Work? 
When a workingman finds his son restless or unsuccessful 
in school, he usually cuts the matter short by putting him to 
work. Sometimes this is the best course for those who are 
not the sons of workingmen. If the child is suffering from 
too much luxury and ease or too much spending-money or 
has become spoiled by too much play and athletics for serious 
work, this may be just what he needs, and it may teach him 
the value of money and of school. The work chosen, how- 
ever, should be selected chiefly for its educative rather than 
its financial interest. It is to be thought of as another kind 
of school. The youth still needs an education, and to put 
him into a blind-alley occupation will not only stop his edu- 
cation but also take away his courage. The only possible 
advantage of this sort of drudgery is that he may get so tired 
of it as to choose school again in desperation. There is, no 

[ 252 ] 



THE PRODIGAL 

doubt, a type of boy who must get his education in this way, 
and if ours be one of these, we ought not to be discouraged 
if this turns out to be the course of study that fits him best. 
Sometimes superabundant energy put to work upon a busi- 
ness or a shop problem finds its own moral corrective. 
With a precocious boy, work has the advantage of 
giving the body time to catch up with the mind, and it avoids 
the danger which comes from sending a child to college before 
he is old enough to appreciate the best things a college has 
to give. 

Shall We Send Him Away to School? 
Another alternative, adopted by many parents, is to send 
a difificult boy or girl away to school. This is to be done only 
as a last resort. If the parents are actually incompetent 
through ill-health or engrossment or lack of ability, this ex- 
pedient may be tried. The probability is that there is no one 
on earth whom such a boy or girl needs so much at just this 
time when he seems least to appreciate them as his own 
parents. The moral effect of sending a child into exile is 
itself to be deprecated. Parents, too, sometimes forget that 
the kind of school which they choose as a retreat for their 
son — a military academy for example — has also been selected 
by the parents of a good many other boys like their own. 
Wise and skilful though the teachers of such an institution 
may be, the boy is shaped so much more by his fellow pupils 
than by his masters that the moral results of such a polite 
reform school are often quite disappointing. There are a 
few schools where daily hard work, carried on with enthusi- 
astic school spirit, is a part of the program in which a mis- 
understood boy may develop leadership, discover himself and 
learn to appreciate his home. 

Shall We Let Him Wander? 
It is not so dangerous for a bright-minded boy to go out 

[253] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

into the world and earn his Hving as some parents suppose. 
In some instances it seems necessary to let the youth have 
free course for a while and provide for himself, while at the 
same time unobtrusively surrounding him with as many 
friends and helpful influences as possible. 

Influences That Will Bring Him Home 
The prodigal usually returns. One of many influences may 
bring him back: We are told of the Prodigal in the parable 
that ''when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in 
that land, and he began to be in want." The result of having 
his own way usually satisfies a lad within a short time. The 
time when he has used up his resources is apt to be coincident 
with the time when his new-found friends desert him and his 
new-found experiences pall upon him. Sometimes sickness 
of body and sometimes sickness of soul brings him back home. 
Sometimes he simply awakens from his illusions and knows 
the truth that his best future is to be where he belongs. 
Again, his experiences may have discovered for him new 
purposes which he hastens to return to fulfill. As to which 
of the home influences is most powerful in leading him back, 
it would be hard to say. Home itself, with its food, its friend- 
liness, its imderstanding, no doubt powerfully attracts him. 
The patient love of those who have awaited his return and will 
welcome him without upbraiding is enough. Yet no doubt 
the homely influence of force of habit underlies almost every 
prodigal's return. He simply cannot break the lengthening 
chain of right-doing which has been forged for him ever since 
he was a young child. 

Usually the combination of simpHcity, dramatized activities, 
patient companionship and a just but stringent financial allow- 
ance, while retaining the child at home, will tide him over 
this time of unrest until he awakens to better sense and self- 
command. 

[254] 



THE PRODIGAL 

One of the most reassuring facts about the prodigal 
deeds of adolescence is that while they may be very vigorous, 
lawless and even lustful, they are not often, as we suppose, 
manifestations of the will — that is, of the real and whole self 
of the youth. They are to a degree experimental and imita- 
tive, even conventional. These acts are hke those of a lot of 
half-broken colts whose driver has not taken command of 
them. If they run loose long enough, the driver, who cannot 
control them, may like to persuade himself that they are going 
in the direction in which he intended to go, but what usually 
happens is that he suddenly shows unexpected strength and 
forcefulness and that they quietly subside and trot along under 
harness. 



[255] 



CHAPTER XXII 

SEX DISCIPLINE 

If we be honest we must acknowledge that the sexual im- 
pulse becomes in the lives of many young men so powerful 
that even ideals, prayers and the influence of good fathers 
and mothers are hardly effective to stay the compulsion. No 
doubt the sex-hungers are stimulated by certain social facts: 
our high-keyed amusements, the relaxation of college and 
fraternal festivals, animal dances, the solitude and freedom of 
the first departure from home, the necessar}^ postponemient 
of marriage, the presence in the world of weak and foolish 
young women who are tempters, and the coarse mascuHne 
ideals that are still current. Within the young man, assist- 
ing his erotic tendency, is the instinct to dare, to experiment 
and to find out, and the equally ancient instinct to chase and 
to make love. 

At this period, our great task is, as President Eliot has 
said, ''to modify toward purity and chivalrous gentleness the 
animal instincts of man." To attempt to do this entirely by 
spiritual means is like trying to shovel earth with a silk spade. 
To endeavor to do it entirely by material means is like trying 
to shovel air wath an iron spade. 

The hmitation of a solely idealistic approach is that it is 
vagueness without the basis of sound knowledge. The weak- 
ness of the eugenic ideal, for instance, is that the youth has 
no knowledge and can have little care for the welfare of the 
conjectural people of the future. 

The disappointment which will come to parents who expect 
to secure right living entirely through spiritual appeals will 
be due to the fact that adolescence is not by any means en- 

[256] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

tirely a spiritual period. It is, according to testimony of 
all psychologists, irresponsible, incoherent, restless and 
independent. 

Good Motives 
Every possible motive must now be brought to bear to 
upstay the will and to keep the life stainless. With one the 
personal motives will avail: self-respect, the noblesse oblige 
that will not hunt down a woman or hurt a child, refinement 
and disgust, what Mr. Roosevelt calls "truculent integrity." 
and even the fear of personal injury. A deliberate choice 
for good may appear, based upon any or all of these self- 
formulated considerations. With another the social passion 
will be more effective: loyalty to clan, reverence of mother- 
hood in the person of his own mother and in that of all 
mothers, chivalry to sisterhood in the person of his own and 
in the unwillingness to make a thrall of the sister of another, 
the sense of responsibility to society and the unwillingness to 
become a social criminal, the sense of outrage at contami- 
nating the springs of birth, fidelity to the wife and children 
that are to be. With still another the religious motive will 
triumph: the manly fear of God, horror at sin, a passion for 
the pure kingdom of heaven on earth. The parents who 
watch with prayerful apprehension our young gladiators as 
they go forth to fight the lions will not be careful to pick and 
choose among motives, if only they can light upon those 
which will be effective. No doubt one counts at one period, 
and another at a later one. Whichever wins, let us use it. 
Of course the highest, if possible. Fear alone may drive a 
man to secret vice. The self-regarding motive may divert 
his selfishness to another channel. Yet, as has been bluntly 
said, it is better to be scared than syphilitic. And let us now 
call upon all the people who can help. The physician may 
broaden the scope of information, the athlete and the camp- 
leader may be strong examples of the strenuous life, good 

[ 257 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

women are always helpful, busy companionship with truly 
strong men makes for spiritual athleticism. The church is 
never more helpful, with its unworldly passion for a better 
age, its brotherhood to children and younger boys — even its 
confessional and its periods of devotion. 

Right Attitudes 

During boyhood, when sex matters were simply factors of 
intellectual curiosity, the passive acceptance of communicated 
facts and ideals was enough, but now, when they involve in 
every youth distinct, hard-won personal choice, the individual 
attitude is everything. No wiser word upon this has ever been 
spoken than that of Professor Maurice A. Bigelow: 

''Unless we can devise some way to counteract the pre- 
vailing narrow, vulgar, disrespectful, and irreverent attitude 
toward all aspects of sex and reproduction; unless we can 
make people see sexual processes in all their normal aspects 
as noble, beautiful, and splendid steps in the great plan of 
nature; unless we can substitute a philosophical and aesthetic 
view of sex relationship for the time-worn interpretation of 
everything sexual as inherently vulgar, base, ignoble, and 
demanding asceticism for those who would reach the highest 
spiritual development; unless we can begin to make these 
changes in the prevailing attitude toward sex and reproduc- 
tion, we cannot make any decided advance in the attempt 
to help solve sex problems by special instruction. First of 
all, sex-education must work for a purified and dignified 
attitude which sees vulgarity and impurity only when the 
functions of sex have been voluntarily and knowingly misused 
and thereby debased. If sex-education succeeds in giving 
young people this enlightened attitude, there will be little 
difficulty in solving most of the ethical and hygienic problems 
of sex. A young man who has caught a glimpse of the 
highest interpretation of sex in its relation to human life, in 

[258] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

short, a young man to whom all natural sex processes are 
essentially pure and noble and beautiful, is not one who will 
make grave hygienic mistakes in his own life, and he will not 
be personally connected with the social evil and its diseases, 
and he will avoid almost intuitively the physiologic and 
psychologic mistakes that most often cause matrimonial dis- 
asters. Everything, then, in successful sex-education de- 
pends upon the attitude formed in the minds of learners; 
and towards this our major efforts should be directed." 

There is a character, unfortunately not unknown in the 
high-school years, called euphemistically a "chicken- 
snatcher" and usually the manager of a high-powered auto- 
mobile, the influence of whose example upon sensitive and 
hero-worshipping boys is analogous to that of the buccaneers 
upon the imagination of youths of the Age of EHzabeth. 
Reversing all the rules of chivalry and glorying in his immu- 
nities, this pirate of innocence, this deluder of pleasure-loving 
girlhood, often flourishes in a manner to cause right-thinking 
youths the same intellectual confusion as that which threat- 
ened the Psalmist when he saw the wicked flourishing like a 
green bay tree. His end does not seem as sure as the end of 
the wicked appeared to the Hebrew, and it requires all the 
shrewdness of a worldly-wise father to enable his son to see 
any fallacy in his career, 

Gerald Stanley Lee says that "the first really important 
shock that comes to a young man's rehgious sentiment in 
this world is the number of bored-looking people around, 
doing right." Perhaps our greatest moral task with young 
people is to persuade them that it is not only wise to be good, 
but happy to be good. 

What we want is not a grudging but a hearty allegiance 
to the cause of right living. "No virtue is safe," says Dr. 
E. O. Sisson, "that is not enthusiastic." It may be too much 
to hope that every young man will become a purity crusader, 

[ 259 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

but he may at least be glad that he is on the manly side. In 
a fraternity of boys, several tens of thousands in number, 
ranging from thirteen to eighteen years of age, and called the 
Knights of King Arthur, those who attain the second degree, 
that of esquire, are bound together with chaste ideals and 
chaste living as one of their watchwords. It has been a 
matter of general observation, running now over a score of 
years, that those who thoughtfully take this obligation to- 
gether with their campanions absorb it as an integral part 
of their young characters and carry it on as a living principle 
into manhood. It is also a well-known fact that the surest 
way to commit a young college man to pure living is to per- 
suade him to act, in some capacity, as elder brother to a com- 
pany of younger ones. The Master's own motto, "For their 
sakes I consecrate myself," then becomes one of the cardinal 
doctrines of such a young man's life and acts as a guiding 
motive long after the special connection has ceased. 

Further Instruction 
Of the matter of instruction now not much need be said. 
The newness is not so much in the facts as in the emphasis. 
Copulation is now, in the imagination of many chaste but in- 
experienced youths, dreamed of as a sensual heaven. Be- 
cause of the mystery with which it has been surrounded, the 
generative act is thought of by many boys as, under whatever 
circumstances performed, the acme of human felicity. It is 
necessary to let them know that here, as in all other moral 
issues, the body is not all. The sorrows and wages of sin are 
nowhere more manifest than here. To harlotry belong fear, 
self-loathing, self-indulgence, quarrelsomeness, contempt, 
hatred, treachery, mercenary conduct, indulgence in drink, 
criminal impulses and despair. To marriage belong love, 
esteem, self-respect, forgiveness, courage, social obligations 
and sacrifice. 

[260] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

A fair, open-eyed knowledge of the extent and the virulence 
of the sexual plagues seems to be essential. The main facts 
seem to be that gonorrhoea, formerly considered "no worse 
than a cold," is now regarded as a malady frequently char- 
acterized by complications, commonly explanatory of sterility, 
apt to appear many years after it was contracted and thus 
likely to affect one's innocent wife and children. Syphilis in- 
fects the whole body through the blood and is both com- 
municable and hereditary. The youth who places himself in a 
situation where he may contract either of these diseases is 
risking his manhood and gambling with other lives — helpless 
ones — than his own. The removal of the veil of romance 
from prostitution should be complete. The daughter of 
shame should be recognized as in no sense alluring, but as in 
the majority of cases of inferior mentality, usually a virulent 
center of an infection whose visitations upon the unborn are 
the greatest of tragedies, and generally weak, ignorant, ill- 
treated and defenseless. Those who engage in clandestine sin 
are even more dangerous because more careless and ignorant, 
and they are generally of a social class — from the ranks of 
servants and working-people — ^whom no high-minded youth 
can wish to rob of their chief Hfe treasure. Young men should 
also be told that — no matter what assurances may be held 
out to them — there are no precautions which will guarantee 
immunity either to their victims or to themselves as to the 
results of the act which constitutes their moral downfall. 

The majesty of a clean family history is impressively shown 
by a group of facts that has recently been collected. One of 
the most inspiring is the history of the great Edwards family, 
compiled by Dr. Winship. Even more convincing is the story 
of the so-called Kallikak family, of which Professor Maurice 
A. Bigelow says: 

"Even making due allowance for the depressing influence 
of the environment in which most of the down-and-out de- 

[261] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

scendants in the degenerate line lived, the comparison be- 
tween the normal and the abnormal lines from the same 
ancestor gives the most convincing eugenic evidence that has 
been discovered in the human race." Doubtless it will long 
be used as a basis for earnest impulsion of youth toward the 
establishment or continuance of a fine heredity. To those 
who have not seen the book Dr. Bigelow's summary will be 
interesting: 

"A young man of good ancestry broke the moral law about 
one hundred and forty years ago and became the father of 
an illegitimate son by a feeble-minded mother. Of 480 
descendants of this son, there have been 46 normal, many 
immoral, many alcoholic and 143 feeble-minded. The same 
man who back in the revolutionary days made a moral mis- 
take which led to such awful consequences, later married a 
woman of good family and became the progenitor of a second 
line of 496 descendants, of whom 494 have been normal men- 
tally (2 were affected by alliance with another family) ; and all 
have been first-class citizens, many of them prominent in 
business, professions, etc. 

"This story of the KalHkak family will teach two important 
lessons: (i) The biological principle that defects, both physical 
and mental, are highly heritable, even for many generations; 
and (2) the ethical responsibility for the sexual actions of the 
individual who may start a long train of human disaster that 
may visit the children unto even later than the third and fourth 
generations. The second lesson is not biological but ethical, 
suggesting individual responsibility for conduct which may 
disastrously affect other individuals' lives. It seems to me 
that so far as general education is concerned, the ethical 
lesson is the more impressive and more likely to lead to 
voluntary eugenic practice by individuals. It is my observa- 
tion that even many intelligent people are not seriously im- 
pressed by the biological evidences for eugenics considered 

[262] 



SEX DISCIPLINE 

as a general problem, but their reaction is one of interest 
when one begins to present the question of ethical responsi- 
bility for the transmission of physical and mental defects to 
future generations." 

There are three lies that a father ought to nail as promptly 
as possible, which are told and believed as an excuse for 
sensual indulgence. One is that such indulgence is a neces- 
sity to virility. Give your son 'The Physician's Answer," a 
small leaflet compiled by Dr. Exner, containing the names of 
over three hundred of America's leading physicians, who 
testify thus that there is not the slightest ground for any such 
doctrine, or remind him that the two classes that most feel 
such "necessity" are imbeciles and degenerates. Another is 
that at least one such indulgence is necessary to prove that 
one is capable of his marital duties. This, of course, is utter 
nonsense, and every young man who is vigorous enough to 
have occasional seminal losses knows that it is nonsense. 
One more idea is that since indulgence is natural and uni- 
versal among the animals, it is a right and privilege that be- 
longs to the higher human animals. This doctrine, perhaps, 
is the outgrowth of too much emphasis upon biological analo- 
gies. Even biologically the argument rather points the other 
way, for man is "the only animal who makes love all the 
year round," who copulates for any purpose other than 
reproduction, or who artificially stimulates his desires. But 
it is still more important to add that he is the only one who 
has a spiritual nature potent to restrain, guide and exalt his 
physical nature. 

There is always need of specific instructions concerning the 
ideals with which young men should approach marriage. 
The greatest need is that they be encouraged to marry at all. 
Bachelorhood is often a social sin, compounded of cowardice 
and self-indulgence and a cynical view of woman. If every 
young man could be told that there are plenty of women in 

[263] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

this world who are too good for him and that it is, other 
things being equal, his duty from every standpoint, personal, 
social and moral, to say nothing of it as a. privilege — to ex- 
pect, to seek and to endeavor to win one of them, we shall 
arrive at a desirable new Puritanism. 

The things to be said about the physical regimen of mar- 
riage are of great importance, but they are beyond the scope 
of this volume. If the ideal of fatherhood, which we insisted 
should be instilled into a boy long before he has the capacity 
of parenthood, accompanied by complete information, can be 
carried all the way along, and the virtue of youth focussed 
in the family relation, even the simplest instruction will be 
effective, because it will be utilized by one who has the divine 
conception of marriage. 



1 264] 



CHAPTER XXIII 

RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

Religion as a Personal Matter 
When we talk about the religious nurture of young chil- 
dren we emphasize habit-forming and ethical teaching. These 
are two preparatives for good living that are administered 
largely by adults. They are two things that, after all, are 
externals. These are all good and proper because the young 
child is hardly a personality and is in a stage previous to a 
real awakening to religious impulses. But with adolescence 
all is different. Religion now becomes a personal matter. 
There is hardly a normal boy of fourteen or fifteen who is not 
keenly sensitive to impulses which, no matter what his home 
training and influences, we must regard as ideaHstic and al- 
truistic — in short, religious. 

Every part of the boy's being at this time has become 
sensitive to religious impulses. His bodily acts are now 
recognized, even by himself, as being expressions of the 
spirit. Especially close is the relation between the newly- 
developed sex-function and passions on the one hand, and the 
ideals on the other. Every boy feels a sensitiveness of con- 
science as to the control of this function and usually finds that 
his growing interest in the other sex has a bearing, favorable 
or unfavorable, upon the development of his reHgious ideals. 
The boy's intellect now carries him off into new curiosities 
and especially on a quest for the settlement of problems now 
for the first time recognized as personal. Socially, the boy's 
conscience seems for a while to be in the keeping of the 
*'gang." Instead of being an individual character he and his 

[265] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

chums seem to represent a conjunct character, each member 
of which contributes certain elements. Yet after a time it is 
noticeable that the boy has been maturing rehgiously some- 
what more rapidly than he has socially, and after he is old 
enough to have succeeded in emancipating himself from his 
crowd it turns out that he has been achieving a definite 
religious as well as mental character of his own. 

Religious Influences 

The problem of writing about religious nurture for this 
period, then, is to say anything about the period that does 
not have religious bearing. It would almost seem to be 
enough to ask the reader to turn back through the preced- 
ing chapters of this portion of the book and reread them. 
Let us take a fresh start, however, by confining our discussion 
to some of the influences which, whether they are consciously 
so recognized or not, are important in affecting a boy's 
religious life. 

We ought to grant at the outset that we do not know very 
much how the religious life develops. It is still true that ''the 
wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, 
but know not whence it com.eth nor whither it goeth: so Is 
every one that is born of the Spirit." We are aware in a 
general way of those two types of people that WilHam James 
made famiHar as the ''once-born" and the "twice-born." The 
twice-born have confessed themselves in literature; we knov/ 
of their conversions, their repentances, their backslidings and 
their ecstasies, but really neither we nor they can say how 
much these experiences have had to do with the life of the 
will and with religious conduct. We ourselves who are of 
the same type look back upon some of these experiences as 
epoch-making to us, yet as they recede we sometimes grow 
a bit skeptical as to their relative importance. Boys at 
least pass through them and emerge apparently not much 

[ 266 ] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

altered. It is still a fair question whether an enjoyable con- 
version has had as much effect upon the motives and after- 
life of a given individual as an hour of poignant shame over 
a failure. 

The once-born are for the most part silent, and yet they 
form no doubt a considerable and worthy minority of the 
human race. Undoubtedly a large number of them enter the 
kingdom of God. But their reHgious experience omits a 
definite turning-point of crisis and lacks the emotional ele- 
ments of the others. 

Conversion 

There was a time when, in orthodox Protestant homes, 
the great concern was that at the proper time the children 
should be converted. This is still with many parents the 
most earnest expectation and endeavor. The churches to 
which such parents usually belong arrange periodically for 
protracted meetings or special occasions in Sunday school 
when appeals shall be made to the young, the response to 
which shall be such conversions. Nobody can doubt the 
effectiveness for such a purpose of the incentives and methods 
which are used, and there are many versed in the psychology 
of religion who believe that such experiences are the emo- 
tional birthright of the young soul and that such committals 
are a powerful and divinely-planned reinforcement to the 
religious will. 

Yet we must acknowledge that increasing numbers of 
young persons are being received into Christian churches 
who would be genuinely puzzled if they were asked whether 
they had been "converted," and it would be hard to prove 
that they do not become just as good Christians. This we 
believe on the whole to be wholesome. It indicates that 
boys are coming along in an increasing number of homes 
just as we have advocated, their wills trained by wholesome 
habit-forming, their social relations carefully guarded and 

[267] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

shared by their parents, their intellectual doubts frankly met 
and their hearts trained to love that which is true, beautiful 
and good. In such households, loyal to the Church, there is 
the expectancy that the child will sometime be called to 
align himself with the divine institution which is like a large 
family, of which his parents and friends are already a part. 
Whether we all agree with these statements or not, may we 
not at least find a common meeting-point in the conviction 
that the experience of conversion is by no means the only 
influence to bring to bear upon an adolescent boy? 

Prayer 
As has already been said, it is difficult for us to appraise 
the relative power of influences, but it would seem that prayer 
is one of the first importance, and never more so than in the 
days when a boy is learning by frequent failures to distrust his 
own powers and by increasing responsibilities to feel his spirit- 
ual loneliness. We have elsewhere urged (when speaking of the 
Religious Nurture of School Boys) that a boy's prayers 
should grow as he grows, but it is not easy during the reticent 
years to learn what a boy's prayers are like. It is certainly 
not to be supposed or hoped that a boy's private petitions are 
those which are occasionally heard from the lips of youths in 
Christian Endeavor meetings. We gather from those rare 
persons who have found it possible to organize small prayer- 
circles of boys of this age that a boy's prayers are extremely 
short and simple and that they are chiefly characterized by 
passionate petition for personal manliness. This, if true, 
seems wholesome. During the years when life appears to 
youth a good fight it would seem natural that they should 
regard the Eternal as their Champion and that communion 
should be to them a rehearsal of moral issues. Thus, I think, 
we should encourage boys to pray, and if also we can persuade 
them that those m.editations which are characteristic of their 

[268] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

solitudes may be turned Godward, then we help them to 
spirituahze their day-dreaming. 

The Bible 

It must be confessed that the Bible often seems to lose its 
force during the adolescent years. Some boys conscien- 
tiously read it daily, but, one must think, as a sacred exercise 
rather than for its contents. They have heard its phrases 
so long that it does not grip the attention, and few boys know 
how to find their way in it. 

We must be at least partly reconciled to this temporary 
loss of interest in the Book of books, for we must remember, 
what will be more distinctly pointed out a Httle later, that it 
is only a part of the whole tendency of youth at this time, 
which is to turn from books to life. In childhood the Bible 
was enjoyed as a story book; after youth has learned some of 
life's lessons, the Bible will remain to most men and women 
a permanent storehouse of personal religious experiences. 

The Church 

We often find this anomaly: that a boy feels religious im- 
pulses most strongly while at the same time he regards the 
Church with the most active distaste. Many boys become 
impatient with church-going because they are too restless 
physically to sit still. Sermons are hardly the natural nutri- 
ment of youth, and many boys have not the attentive power 
or the mastery of vocabulary to follow them intelHgently 
through. To boys even more than adults the man behind the 
address is the principal thing, and the minister who is a 
friend of boys finds them a challenging and friendly part of 
his congregation. 

We forget, too, that the domination of the "gang" follows 
the boy even to church. He Hkes to go only where his 
"gang" goes. If his "gang" goes to church or if he finds that 

[269] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

a "gang" which he would like to join goes, then he is quite 
willing to go, but in later adolescence, if the companions of 
a boy are non-churchgoers, and the local church does not 
make strong endeavor to appeal to the boy's real interests, 
the problem of continuing such allegiance becomes a very 
difficult one. 

The Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church have been 
especially wise, psychologically, in organizing themselves 
about the child in a fashion imitative of the family. The 
baptized child is accepted as a member of the ecclesiastical 
family, potentially regenerate. It is the tradition as well as 
the expectation that the child will come forward in adoles- 
cence to prove his knowledge of the fundamentals of the 
faith in the confirmation class ; instead of waiting for a cata- 
clysmal conversion — which may not come — before being ad- 
mitted into full communion, the child is admitted upon at- 
taining a fitting age and reasonable knowledge. And it is 
beHeved that in the solemn interim between the confirmation 
and the first communion and in the activities which follow, 
or in the fold of the church, with maturing character, spiritual 
life will gradually appear. So far as the influence of this 
plan can be thrown around children, what could be more 
admirable to secure a quiet, normal Christian development? 

It is the writer's observation and experience that where 
religious committal through joining the church does not oc- 
cur as the result of the process of training and study just 
mentioned, it almost invariably comes through the influence 
and example of companions. It would be hard to find a re- 
vival. Decision Day or any other church-m.embership cam- 
paign where the group-spirit is not depended upon, and few 
ministers who work more quietly ignore the influence of 
the "gang," clique or class in securing young adherents. 
This testimony to the conjunct nature of religious experience 
during adolescence has its meaning for the home, since it 

[ 270 ] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

is a reminder that wholesome fellowships with children of 
similar age in the church life are often potent influences to- 
ward calling out into consciousness a hitherto unformulated 
but developing religious impulse. The positive value of 
young people's societies within the church, after committals 
have not been made, is not in their devotional exercises, which 
frequently strike an artificial note, but in their alliance of 
young Christians for self-protection and in their joint activi- 
ties in the service of others. 

The Sunday School 

A great deal of distress is expressed because boys of this 
age lose their interest in Sunday school. It seems to be for- 
gotten that they are apparently at this time not interested 
in any kind of school. Many a youth is so engrossed with 
his own importance just now that he does not care much 
what anybody teaches him about anything. A great deal 
that takes place during the ''opening exercises" of most 
Sunday schools is to the average boy a bore. "The three- 
quarters of an hour singing is terrible" was the typical tes- 
timony of one suffering youth. Such exercises are particu- 
larly hard to bear if the lad has just been to church. His 
semi-familiarity with the Bible especially causes him to feel 
impatience with a course of study which reviews that which 
he thinks he knows all about. He is also likely at this period 
to scorn methods of Bible study which seem to him un- 
scientific, and, by inference, to express contempt for the 
Bible itself. It is necessary that courses of Bible study dur- 
ing these years should be particularly cautious not to teach 
a boy anything which he will later need to unlearn. The 
same frankness and liberty of research which is given in 
scientific subjects in high school should now be applied to 
the Sunday school. 

But the great interest of boys now is in what they call 

[ 271 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

"real life." The popularity and success of courses of study 
which recognize this fact even in their titles, such as "Real 
Problems of High School Boys," "Life Problems of Young 
Men," "Young People's Problems," etc., show that the youth 
has now come to a time when he will no longer accept facts 
on trust; when he is impatient with the question-and-answer 
method; when he wishes to express his own opinions as 
w^ell as to hear others in discussion. Our best boys' classes 
in Sunday school today are those in which strong, fearless 
men grapple in heart-to-heart contests with their pupils upon 
the problems of real Hfe. 

Over twenty years' observation has proven to the writer 
that the principal reason for the exodus of boys from the 
Sunday school during the adolescent years is the lack of 
good teachers. In this voluntary school, whose subject is 
life, the living teacher is everything. We are writing here 
from the standpoint of the home. If I as a parent had a son 
for whom there was available no worthy Sunday-school 
teacher, I would regard the school as a complete failure so 
far as that boy was concerned. 

Personal Influence 
This simply goes to confirm the point to which we have 
been moving — that the best influence which we can bring to 
bear upon a boy rehgiously is that of a good hero. Professor 
Tyler quotes Wendell Phillips as saying that the power that 
hurled slavery from its throne was young men dreaming 
dreams by patriots' graves. He thinks, sensibly, that a great 
orator would have acknowledged that a few living patriots 
might vivify the dream without disturbing it. We parents 
ought to regard as a happy day that one when our sons find 
in Sunday school or in public school or anywhere else an adult 
friend who represents in his own person qualities which are 
really admirable for them to imitate. 

[272] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

The writer recalls a splendid young Yale man whom two 
of his own sons had as a Sunday-school teacher for six 
years. When, toward the close of that period, he heard 
one of them say that he would rather be Hke Frank Werne- 
ken than anyone else on earth, he recognized the statement as 
no exaggeration, since both boys were recognizably absorb- 
ing the ideals of their hero. In the instance of one of them em- 
ulation of a manly high-school teacher actually determined 
the choice of vocation. It was the deep philosophy of the 
Fourth Gospel that the light of God is manifested only in 
the form of life, and so it has ever been. We need not 
entirely regret the temporary turning of boys from the Bible 
in their quest for a book of life written in real men, and 
we may well be persuaded that we can afford to allow our 
sons to lose some of the other good influences which we 
have commended if only they have found good friends. 

But how shall we do this? 

Well, we can be such friends to them ourselves. Do you 
know this is not as easy as it sounds? There are today 
plenty of indulgent parents, plenty of parents whose ex- 
amples are worth following, but there is still a lack of 
parents who are companionable with their children. I sit 
daily at the center of a correspondence that comes from 
many thousands of parents from all over the country. Into 
the same offices come letters from their children. We thus 
get oftentimes both angles on a family situation, and I can 
truly say that I cannot remember a problem of the adoles- 
cent years that did not arise out of the distance that had 
come to exist between parent and child; nor can I recall a 
single one of the many successful homes which was not 
explained by a beautiful comradeship. Frankly, the trouble 
is that we love our boys, but we do not like them. Isn't 
that just it? We cUng affectionately to their lives and health 
and future, but we do not like their clumsiness, their irri- 

[273] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

tating ignorance and conceit, their maddening folly and ob- 
stinacy, their loss of all that we think is worth while. 

I speak with the deepest humility upon this theme, for I 
regard myself as having been far from a model parent, but 
when I look upon the three splendid grown sons who re- 
gard me as a companion and ask myself how I can explain 
anything that I had to do with such a result, I can think 
of absolutely no explanation but that I tried to put myself 
in their places and to believe the best about them. 

I revere a man who can pray with his children, but I 
speak reverently when I say that, though I cannot, I regard 
it as quite as religious a virtue that I can play with mine. 
It seems to me that incarnation, which is treated in theology 
as an isolated act of God, ought to become in life a human 
habit, and that it is the chief means by which fathers and 
mothers can bring their sons to God. 

Religious Living 

Whatever may be the rehgious experience of a boy, we 
begin to feel that he has a genuine religious life when we 
first see him do something for somebody else. The writer 
of one of the epistles that bears the name of John says that 
''we know that we have passed out of death into life when 
we love the brethren." In the only distinct and positive state- 
ment which Jesus made regarding the nature of reHgion, he 
made religion a question of how a man behaves in the face 
of human need. He named six of the commonest of human 
needs — sickness, sorrow, loneliness, suffering, hunger, pov- 
erty — and suggested that our attitude toward these was the 
real test of our rehgion. It is this attitude, freely and gen- 
erously taken, and not a system of dogmatics or ethics, 
which constitutes the religious life we ought to crave for 
our young people. 

In the realm of service we have opportunity in at least 

[ 274 ] 



RELIGIOUS NURTURE 

three ways. The warm feehng of the boy for those who 
are less fortunate may now properly be expressed through 
gifts and deeds which involve some sacrifice on his own part. 
He may now assume definite responsibility with special needs 
and objects of care. He may devote himself with peculiar 
tenderness to the needs of those who are a little younger 
than himself. 

Someone has said recently that ''the most neglected re- 
ligious need of the boy is that of being shown definitely 
what Christianity means for him along the line of his daily 
activities." We know that at least three-fourths of the 
rehgious action of an adult consists in doing his daily duties 
well. In this respect we must confess that a boy shows 
himself a crusader rather than a cross-bearer. I could 
easily imagine a high-school boy teaching a Sunday-school 
class and habitually neglecting to bring up the coal. The 
trait is human. We all would rather pick flowers than dig 
up weeds. I should be patient with this manifestation. I 
should not taunt such a boy with his public goodness and 
his meager private virtues. I should be thankful that he has 
the will to serve, and wait for the later consecration when 
he performs hated duties, as I do, only with grumbling. 



[275] 



CHAPTER XXIV 

FACTS FOR ENCOURAGEMENT 

There are some manifestations during this period, usually 
considered trying, that may be interpreted as really what we 
like to call "good signs." 

The youth is garrulous. But this means that he is con- 
fidential. No matter if the boy bores you dreadfully with his 
football lingo or the girl with her school gossip, be thankful 
that they trust you so as to want to tell you their secrets. 
Never shut that door. 

The youth is susceptible to unworthy companions. 
But susceptibility is impartial. He must be equally sus- 
ceptible to good ones, if they are as interesting. Help 
him to better companionships. Don't try to shut that 
door. 

The youth is not studious. Maybe he is protecting his 
health while growing; maybe not. The main point is not 
what he is getting out of school, but what he is getting 
out of life. Life is more important than school. 

The youth has such crude moral conceptions. Crude but 
strong. And did you never notice how true he is to the 
few conceptions that he has succeeded in mastering? 

What you may hope for is not finished characters, fully- 
matured judgments, perfectly polished manners, before the 
years of maturity. But you may hope for these: the general 
disposition to will well and wisely; the ability of your chil- 
dren to propel themselves after you have ceased to push them 
from behind; undying affection for yourself coupled with a 
growing appreciation of what you have meant to them; the 

[276] 



FACTS FOR ENCOURAGEMENT 

power of handing on to their descendants and yours the 
goodly heritage of bodily, mental and moral soundness, with 
all that means to society and to the world; and, above all, 
the resolution to be of service. 
It is a task well worth all it costs. 



[277] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 



SUMMARY 

Developments of Adolescence. — Adolescence is the golden age of 
life. Physical development comes on in waves and lulls, and emo- 
tional, mental and moral changes accompany it. The characteristic 
emotion is ambition, involving at times the most sanguine hopeful- 
ness, alternating with periods of despair because of embarrassing 
failures. Social life is boisterous and buoyant; the youth becomes in- 
tensely loyal to chums and the "gang," and at some time during this 
period develops a new interest in girls. There is a moral awakening 
which is characterized at different times by emotional feeling and 
thoughtfulness. 

Methods of Government.— Conservation of energy and encourage- 
ment to sane development of life are now important. The parent must 
endeavor to understand, as far as possible, the rapidly-changing emo- 
tions, and when he cannot understand them to be tolerant of them. 
Socially, he works with the "gang" and recognizes that boys are in- 
dependently thoughtful religiously before they are socially, and so 
must be patient until the boy's actions begin to catch up with his 
ideals. In the moral realm we still build upon the basis of habits well 
established, although they are not sufficient for every new situation. 
Our greatest opportunity is in the guidance of the will. 

Ruling Motives. — These are self-respect, hero-worship, respon- 
sibility, chivalry and life purpose. 

The Prodigal. — The skill and care of fathers are especially essen- 
tial in order to solve the prodigal tendencies. It is sometimes neces- 
sary to take extreme means for a time, like putting a boy to work 
or even letting him wander; but the prodigality of adolescence is not 
generally decisive. 

Sex Discipline. — We must now use every possible motive and de- 
velop every possible right attitude to meet the sex impulse. 

Religious Nurture. — The need now is for religious nurture, by 
certain special influences which are helpful toward a definite religious 
life. Among these are the experience of conversion, the practice of 
prayer, a church life especially adapted to the boy's needs, a Sunday 
school which faces life problems courageously, and the personal in- 
fluence of admired men, especially of fathers. The boy begins to 
live religiously when he begins to live for somebody else. 

REFERENCES 

Although child study has centered largely upon adolescents, writers 
have seemed to avoid dealing directly with the difficult matter of 
their home training. Consequently, the list of helpful and practical 
books is not long. A few books are mentioned dealing with the spe- 
cial problems of the period. 

Books upon the Philosophy of Management 
That Boy of Yours, 250 pp., by James S. Kirtley, published by George 
H. Doran Co., New York. 

1 278 ] 



SUMMARY 

Parents and teachers of boys will profit by the sympathetic view o£ 
boyhood of Mr. Kirtley, who takes the ground that there are no bad 
boys and that boys are made bad by misunderstanding. He discusses 
the morals, body, mind, religion, failings and home associations and 
brings all these things before grov>?n-up eyes from the standpoint of 
the boy himself. In these days of the new view held by social workers 
and educators in regard to boys and their tendencies and development a 
book like this is sure to prove of value. 

Youth, Its Education, Regimen and Hygiene, 380 pp., by G. Stanley 
Hall, published by D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
An epitome of the practical conclusions of Dr. Hall's large volumes 
on Adolescence in such form as to make them available to parents, 
teachers and reading circles. The chapters most helpful concerning 
moral training are the seventh, upon faults, lies and crimes ; the 
eleventh, upon the education of girls ; and the twelfth, upon moral and 
religious training. 

Childhood, 254 pp., by Mrs. Theodore W. Birney, published by F. A. 
Stokes Co., New York. 

Of this valuable book. Dr. Stanley Hall says, "The author has a head 
and heart so full of motherhood and so freighted with its lessons, and 
with the new and higher sense of its meaning that she has found the 
right way by intuition" * * * The book presents in unusually at- 
tractive, clear and forcible English the substance of what parents most 
need to know in order to make their influence more felt for good upon 
the rising generations." Mrs. Birney was the founder of the National 
Congress of Mothers. The book is unusual in its simplicity, its com- 
mon-sense dealing with the problems of home life. It is written by a 
mother who knows whereof she speaks because she has practiced what 
she preaches. 

Home, School and Vacation, 220 pp., by Annie Winsor Allen, pub- 
. lished by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 

The book deals with the three subjects indicated in its title: home 
training, school life and vacation employments. The book is all good, 
and the chapter on discipline deserves to be written in gold. One of 
the great values of the book is its excellently simple arrangement. 
There is a suggestive chart on normal child development at the close. 
Educational Problems, two volumes, xiii, 710 pp. and 714 pp., by G. 
Stanley Hall, published by D. Appleton & Co., New York. 

It is hardly to be expected that many parents will read all the fifteen 
hundred pages of this treasure house of information. Nearly every- 
thing President Hall writes is suggestive, some of it challenges opposi- 
tion, but that only stimulates thought. The chapters of greatest value 
to parents of adolescent young people are the fourth, upon the religious 
training of children and the Sunday school; the fifth, upon moral edu- 
cation; the seventh upon the pedagogy of sex; and the ninth, upon the 
budding girl. Of all these the most sensible and practical is the one 
upon moral education. 

The Coming Generation, 402 pp., by William Byron Forbush, pub- 
lished by D. Appleton & Co. 

[279] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

Book I — I. The General Confession. 2. Some Adventures among 
Savages. 3. The Young Pretender. 4. How a Child Does His Think- 
ing. 5. Books and Firelight and Children's Faces. 6. The Gang. 7. 
The Religious Life of a Child. 8. The Wander Years. 9. The IModern 
Home. 10. The Art of Being a Godparent. Book H — 11. Eugenics, 12. 
Health. Book HI — 13. The New Education. 14. Vocational Training 
and Guidance. 15. Some High School Problems. 16, Moral Training 
in Schools. 17. The Social School. 18. Defective Children. 19. Play 
and Playgrounds. 20. Clubs for Street Boys. 21. Camps and Outings. 
22. College and the Child. 23. The Beautiful Ordering of Life. 24. A 
Child Educating Himself. Book IV — 25. The Regulation of Child 
Labor. 26. The Juvenile Court. 27. Reformatory Methods. 28. De- 
pendent and Neglected Children. Book V — 29. The Sunday School. 
30. The Church Living with Its Children. 31, The Christian Associa- 
tions. 32. The Larger Nurture. A Program for the Betterment of 
Boys and Girls. 

Training the Boy, 368 pp., by William A. McKeever, published by 
Macmillan Co., New York. 

The motto of this book may be expressed in these words : "Train 
the whole boy and not merely a part of him." In writing this book, 
the author has sketched a practical plan for rounding out the whole 
boy, placing the emphasis upon all rather than some of the forces ne- 
cessary for complete train'ng. He devotes considerable attention to 
habit-forming and social training, but his emphasis is upon industrial 
and vocational guidance. Common sense is the keynote of all that 
Professor McKeever writes. 

Books upon Child Study 
The Adolescent, 100 pp., by J. W. Slaughter, published by George 
Allen & Co., London. 

An astonishingly fruitful little book. The author avoids the note of 
alarm which underlies much writing on this subject and speaks very 
instructively and hopefully upon many of the home problems of this 
period. 

The Individual in the Making, 339 pp., by E. A. Kirkpatrick, pub- 
lished by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 

More brief than G. Stanley Hall and more completely covering the 
entire development of child life is this study of the stages through 
which a young person passes from birth to maturity. The chapters upon 
adolescence are especially full of intere'^ting detail and contain a good 
many illustrations from the lives of individual children. There is also 
in each chapter a number of sensible suggestions for dealing with the 
various phenomena of each stage of development. 
Growth and Education, 294 pp., by John Mason Tyler, published by 
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 

A very valuable book upon the way a child grows. Dr. Tyler lays a 
special emphasis upon the necessity oi guarding the youth during high- 
school years from excesses of work or play. He has a ver>' wise word 
as to the necessity of watching girls during the grammar-school years 
lest they shall enter high school and continue in college over-strained 

[280] 



SUMMARY 

and tired out. The book is characterized by good sense and the parent 
will find it full of many helpful suggestions. 

Books upon Sex Discipline 
Reproduction and Sexual Hygiene, 149 pp., by Winfield S. Hall, 

M. D., published by the Wynnewood Publishing Co., Chicago. 
The American Boy and the Social Evil, by Robert N. Willson, M. D., 

published by John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia. 
Health and Hygiene, 16 pp., by Prince A. Morrow, M. D., published 

by the American Federation for Social Hygiene, New York. 
The Physician's Answer, 16 pp., by A. E. Exner, M. D., published by 

Association Press, New York. 
Sexual Hygiene for Young Men, 4 pp., published by the Spokane So- 
ciety of Social and Moral Hygiene, Spokane, Wash. 
The Strength of Ten, 32 pp., by Winfield S. Hall, M. D., published 

by B. S. Treadwell, La Crosse, Wis. 
The Kallikak Family, 121 pp., by H. H. Goddard, M. D., published 
by Macmillan Co., New York. 
This is the most astonishing and suggestive practical study yet made 
in the eugenic history-^of a single family. 

Sex Instruction as a Phase of Social Education, 16 pp., by Maurice 
A. Bigelow, published by the American Federation for Sex Hy- 
giene, New York City. 
Dwells especially upon the importance of such instruction in its rela- 
tionship to the family and social Hfe, particularly emphasizing the con- 
siderations which appeal to older boys. 

Books upon Social Problems 
The Boy Problem, 219 pp., by William Byron Forbush, published by 
The Pilgrim Press, Boston. 

This book begins with a resume of the child study of boy nature. It 
gives a very careful study of the social instincts. There are two chap- 
ters on the social organizations of the day for boys and the book closes 
with sections on the boy in the school, the church and the home. This 
book has been especially useful to social workers with boys. 
The Minister and the Boy, 171 pp., by Allan Hoben, published by The 
University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 

A book urging ministers and churches to take a more definite and 
practical and continuous social relationship to boys. The writer has 
had a varied experience with boys of all classes in a city and no one 
has presented more impressively the social duty and obligation of the 
religious world to the growing youth. 

Books upon Religious Nurture 

Educational Evangelism, 265 pp., by Charles E. McKinley, published 

by The Pilgrim Press, Boston. 

A discussion of the reli.dous discipline that is most desirable for 

the years of adolescence. This is a book which deserves to be better 

known. The author sketches in a simple but inspiring form the normal 

[ 281 ] 



THE BOY PROBLEM IN THE HOME 

moral development of an adolescent boy or girl. He then shows the 
kind of religious approach which is desirable for each evolving period. 
He discusses helpfully the place of both the home and the church in 
these years of crisis in the life of growing youth. It is a most help- 
ful book for parents and a most inspiring one for church workers. 
The Boy and the Church, 190 pp., by Eugene C. Foster, pubHshed by 

Association Press, New York. 
Boys who are under religious ^ influence — Sunday-school boys and 
church-going boys — these only it is of whom Mr. Foster writes. He 
knows from a large experience in both church and Y. M. C. A. work 
that a considerable proportion of these very boys not only drop out 
of Sunday-school ranks, but they go clear over to swell the ranks 
of the wayward and the delinquent. Why is it, and how shall it be 
prevented? To this one problem Mr. Foster addresses himself. Re- 
claiming is good, but preventing is better. It is a necessary text-book 
for the home, the Sunday-school worker and the minister. 
Boy Life and Self-Government, 210 pp., by George Walter Fiske, 

published by Association Press, New York. 
The book opens with a description of boy life, including a study of 
boys' instincts. There is a careful analysis of the epochs of body and 
youth. A discussion of clubs for boys follows, giving details of organi- 
zation. The book closes with two sensible chapters on the boy's reli- 
gion and the boy's home. A useful book for parents and social workers 
with boys. 



[282] 



INDEX 



Activity, Government by 

52, 102, 159 
Adolescence, Developments of 

219, 278 
Adult's Outlook, The 109 

After School 113 

Alienation from Parents 250 

Allowances 243 

Ambition 220 

Amusements 199 

Anger, Punishing in 36, 47 

Animalism 65 

Anthropomorphism 64 

Anti-domestic 220, 227 

Apologizing to Children 20 

Artful Dodger, The 137 

Athletics 229, 238 

Attention and Obedience 32 

Attention in Prayer 76 

Authority 24 

Authority, Children's Respect 

for 5 

Awakening, Moral 225 



Babies, Obedience of 
Backwardness 


25 
240 


Baptism 

Bawling 

Beauty 

Bedtime 

Bible and the Child, The 


270 

34 

207 

48 

92 



Bible Reading 187, 269, 271 

Bible Story-Telling 93 

Biological Teaching 60 

Blundering 246 

Boarding School 253 

Books, The Choice of 207 

Boy Before Eight, The 58 

Boyhood, Periods of 57 
Boy Problem, The : What it is vii 

Bullying 6 



Career, Motives of a 246 

Character 99 

Child and the Bible, The 92 

Child as a Plaything, The . 12 
Child as a Person, The 12 

Child Is on Our Side, The 97 

Child Nurture 64 

Children, Misunderstood 9 

Children's Attitude, The 135, 213 
Children's Ideas of Justice 38 

Children's Prayers 73 ff. 

Child's Ideas about God, The 64 
Child's Room, The 248 

Chivalry 209, 248 

Choice, Government through 

33, 167 
Choice, The Successor of 

Obedience 167 

Christian Endeavor 268 

Chums 225 

Church Attendance 94 

Church, Beauty of 94 

Church-going 94, 269 

Church Membership 270 

Circumcision 58 

Cloudy Days 115 

Clumsiness 231 

Code, Mastering a 194 

Committal, Religion 270 

Companionship with Children 119 
Conceit of Parents 70 

Concreteness in Teaching 68 

Confidence, Keeping the 230, 242 
Conformity 98 

Conservatism of Children 136 

Constructive Play 87 

Conversion 267 

Co-operation in Punishment 31 
Corporal Punishment 44, 102 

Courtesy 73, 117 ff. 

Crying 47 



Calmness 

"Captain of the Day" 

Card Playing 


226 Dancing 

237 Day Dreaming 

201 Decision Day 

[283] 


201 
221 
270 



INDEX 



Deliberation in Government 

112, 132 
Deprivation, Punishment by 

40, 102 
Despondency 229 

Destroying Property 247 

Development, Physical 219 

Developments of Adolescence 

219, 278 
Devices for Punishment 30 

Discipline, Steadiness in 24 

Disobedience 16, loi 

Disorder 7 

Diversion, Government by 1=^5 
"Don't" 173 

Drill 30, 156 

Duty 193 

Duty, Teaching about 68 

Earning Money 244 

Emissions, Seminal 180 

Emotional Changes 220 

Emotions, The Management of 230 
Emulation, Government by 52, 102 
Encouraging Facts 97, 211, 276 
Estrangement 10 

Ethical Teaching 194 

Eugenics 261 

Example 86 

Explanation, Government by 153 
Explanations 32 

Facts for Encouragement 

97, 211, 276 

Fairness 16, loi 

Family Worship 187 

Fatherhood 17, 61 

Fatherhood of God, The 65 

Fatigue 115 

Fears 221 

Feelings, Training of the 206 

Fickleness 222 

F'ghting 112 

Firmness 21, loi 

First Love 233 

Fitness of Parents i?t 

Food 58 

Foresight 113 

Forgetting in Forgiveness 31 

Forgiveness 33, 226 

Friendships 233 



Friendship, The Instinct of 224 

Gang, The 144, 224, 232 

Gardening 88 

Gsrrulousness of Youth 276 

Gentleman, The 170 

Gentleness 220 

Girls 233 

God, Presence of 66, ii2 

God, Teaching about 64 

"Good Fellows" _ ^ 27, loi 

Government by Activity 52, 102, 159 
Government by Diversion 155 
Government by Emulation 52, 102 
Government by Explanation 153 
Government by Persuasion 154 
Government by Punishment 

36, loi, 161, 213 
Government by Reward 51, 102 
Government by Suggestion 29, loi 
Government by Words 32, loi 
Government through Choice 

33, loi, 167 
Gratitude 227 

Greed 52 

Habits and Morality 71 

Habit-forming 69 

Habit-forming, Will-training 

by 184 

Habits of Reverence 73 

Habituation 156 

Helpiner in School Tasks 124 

Hero Worship 224, 241, 272 

High School i86 

Home and the Sunday School, 

The 196 

Home Covenant 236 

Home-made Playthings 88 

Home Work 124 

Honestv in Government IQ9 

Hopefulness 225, 227 

How Children Break the Law 

6, loi 
How Children Regard Law 3, loi 
How Children Regard Punish- 
ment 9, 101 
How to Teach a Child to Pray 7S 
Humor in Childhood 33 
Hymns So 

Ideas about God, The Child's 64 



[284] 



INDEX 



Imaginative Play 89 

Imitation 5 

Imitative Play '67 

Individualism 142 

Influence, Personal 272 
Influences 266, 272 

Initiative 167 

Instincts, Social 223 

Instincts, The 87 

Insight 116. 

Interests 222 

Interrupting Children 17 

Jesus, Teaching about 67, 93 

Justice, Children's Ideas of 38 

Kallikak Family, The 261 

Keeping Promises 24 

Law, How Broken by Children 

6, loi 
Law, How Regarded by Chil- 
dren, 3, lOI 
Law, The Child's Relationship 

to 136 

Lecturers on Purity 56 

Life Purpose, A 248 

Limitations of "Natural" Pun- 
ishment 39 
Listening no 
Living, Religious 274 
Loitering 151 
Love for Children 21 
Loyalty 69 
Loyalty to Jesus 67 
Lulls 221 

Management of the Emotions 230 
Marriage 263 

Mastering a Code 194 

Methods of Government 

153, 167, 213, 228, 278 
Methods of Sex Instruction 54 
Military Academy 253 

Military Discipline 157 

Ministers as Sex Instructors 56 
Mischief 3 

Misunderstanding Children q 

Modesty 58 

Money 221, 243 

Montessori Methods 41 



Moral Awakening 
Moral Law, The 
Moral Relations 
Moral Training 
Motherhood 
Motion Pictures 
Motives 



?2S 

60 

205 
249, 257, 278 



Nagging 226, 243 

"Natural" Punishments 37, 102 

Negative Offences 9 

New Testament, The 93 

Noisiness 34 
Nurture, Child 

64, 102, 184, 213, 265, 278 

Obedience 147, 213 

Obedience, Drill in 31 

Obedience, Majesty of 193 

Obedience of Babies 25 

Obedience, Purpose of 147 

Obedience, The Right to Ask 13 

Obstinacy 43, 138 

Offences, Negative 9 

Old Testament, The 92 

"Once Born," The 266 

Origins of Life S9 

Outlook, The Adult's 109 

Outlook, The Child's no 

Overlooking Faults 20, loi 

Parent and Teacher 174 

Parent as Educator, The 12, lOi 

Parent as Judge, The 46 

Parental Conceit 70 

Parental Friendship 232 

Parental Power 87 

Parental Unity 27 

Parent's Attitude, The 11, 213 

Passivity in Education 208 

Paying Children 244 

Penalties 247 

Penitence of Children 8 

Periods of Boyhood 57 

Personal Commands 136 

Personal Influences 272 

Personality 222 

Persuasion 15 
Persuasion. Government by I54 

Physical Development 219 

Physical Management 228 



[285] 



INDEX 



Physical Reward 51 

Physicians as Sex Instructors 55 
Play 87 

Play and Work 89 

Playthings, Home-made 88 

Power of Parents 87 

Practical Joking 33 

Praise 51, 240 

Prayer 74 ff., 185, 268 

Prayer, Attention in 76 

Prayers, A Treasury of 84 

Prayers, How to Teach 78 

Praying for Children 79 

Prodigal, The 250, 278 

Promises, Keeping 24 

Punishment as a Right 46 

Punishment by Deprivation 40, 102 
Punishment, Government by 

36, 161, 213 
Punishment, How Regarded by 

Children 9, loi 

Punishment, Purposes of 36 

Purpose, A Life 248 

Putting Things Away 151 

Putting Children to Bed 47 

Racial Life, The 4 

Reading, The Value of 187, 209 
Rebellion 224 

References 102, 213, 278 

Refractoriness 138 

Regularity 08 

Regularity, The Child's Liking 

for 5 

Relations with Others 197 

Religious Habits 185 

Religious Influences 266 

Religious Living 274 

Religious Nurture 

64, 102, 184, 213, 265, 278 
Remorse of Children 141 

Renewal of Life .S7 

Reproduction, Instruction about 61 
Respecting Children 11 1 

Responsibility 2^7, 243 

Retaliation 162 

Reverence, Habits of 73 

Reverence in Church 95 

Reverence in Prayer 74 

Revivals 267 

Reward, Government by 51, 102 



Rhyming Prayers 83 

Rhythms 225 
Right to Ask Obedience, The 13, loi 

Right to Disobev, The 16, loi 

Room, The Child's 247 

Routine 71 

Ruling Motives 239 

Safety in Punishment 44 

Sarcasm 33, ii3 
School 223, 253 

Scolding 43 

Self-abuse 178 

Self-assertiveness 186 

Self-control 98 

Self-directed Play 88 

Self-obedience vii 

Self-propulsion viii 
Self-regarding Period, The 198 

Self Respect 239 

Selfishness 4 

Seminal Emissions 180 

Sense of Beauty, The 206 

Sex Disciphne 54, 102, 213, 256, 278 

Sex Instruction, Methods of 54 

Sex Instructors 56 

Sex Organs, Care of the 57 

Sex Worries 181 

Sexual Vices 261 

Silliness 224 

Sleeping Alone 58 

Smoking 158 

Sociability I44 

Social Management 232 

Solitude, Prayer in 82 

Spanking 44 

Steadiness in Discipline 24 

Stolidity in Growth 211 

Story-telling 91 

Stories 90 
Strength, The Child's Feeling 

for 208 

Studiousness 276 
Suggestion in Government 

29, 106, 153 

Summary 225 

Summaries loi, 213, 278 

Sunday 95, 189 

Sunday Club, The 191 

Sunday Meals 186 

Sunday Newspapers 191 



[286] 



INDEX 



Sunday School 94, 


196, 


271 


Truancy 


250 


Sunday School and the Home, 


"Twice Born," The 


266 


The 




196 


Ulysses and the Sirens 


vii 


Table Manners 




39 


Unity between Parents 


27 


Table Talk 




122 


Unreasonableness 


16 


Talking, The Value of 




194 






Teacher and Parent 




174 


Vices, Sexual 


261 


Teachers as Sex Instructors 


56 


Volition 


171 


Teachers, Sunday School 




272 






Teaching about Duty 




68 


Waking Hours 


114 


Teaching about God 




64 


Weather, The 


115 


Telling Bible Stories 




93 


Will, Education of the 


2}i7 


Temperance 




159 


Will-training 


168 


Thankfulness 




80 


Will-training by Habit-forming 184 


Theater-going 




203 


Work 


52, 252 


Touch Hunger 




9 


Work and Play 


89 


Training of the Feelings, 


The 


206 






Treasury of Prayers, A 




84 


Young People's Societies 


271 



[287] 



3477-5 



I 



